


blue moon

by illinoise



Category: Newsies (1992), Newsies - All Media Types, Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: Kid Fic, M/M, Slow Burn, Strangers to Lovers, and also a gigantic literature nerd, and they were ROOMMATES, badass choir teacher medda, crutchie has pillow pets, davey's an english teacher, jack is somehow the world's best and worst father all at once, mexican jack kelly babey!!!!!!!, more tags to be added later probs, spot and race are obnoxious neighbors
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-06
Updated: 2019-06-05
Packaged: 2019-06-06 00:35:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 53,773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15182843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/illinoise/pseuds/illinoise
Summary: When Davey puts an advertisement up online to find a roommate, he’s not expecting much to come from it. So when Jack Kelly and two-year-old Luna send life as Davey knows it spinning, he's left to pick up the pieces--and to learn how to love somebody whose heart is still set in the past.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> hiiiii, it's meeeeee!  
> so, yes, hello, ella said she was going to work on a lovely bitter water sequel, what is this? i am still working on the sequel (promise!!!) but i was having some mad writer's block for it and i got sudden inspiration for this little idea, so here we go! another modern au, although with a few twists. enjoy

_"The whole mad swirl of everything that was to come began then."_ \--Jack Kerouac, _On the Road_

-

“I’m a middle school choir teacher.”

“I know what you are.”

Medda leant back in her chair. Davey was across from her, slumped over her desk. “So why are you asking me for advice here? It isn’t like I’m prospering, dear.”

“Because my life is over and I don’t know what to do about it,” Davey whined.

Charlie, Medda’s student teacher and resident piano prodigy, spoke up from the piano bench. Davey hadn’t even been aware he was listening, seeing as he’d appeared so absorbed in his sheet music. He supposed he should know by now what a freakishly brilliant multi-tasker Charlie was. “Sorry, Dave, but you prob’ly should’ve seen something like this coming. Your landlord was terrible. It was only a matter of time before he got busted.”

“Thank you so much, you’ve fixed everything.”

In hindsight, though, Charlie was right. (Wasn’t he always?)

Davey was being booted from his apartment within the month. Another one of his landlord's tenants was threatening a lawsuit, thanks to what a bad landlord he honestly was. Offenses included refusing to fix a broken water heater, refusing to fix an outlet (causing somebody to get shocked), and refusing to look into a mysterious ceiling leak.

The landlord hadn’t specified his legal issues as reason for refusing to renew Davey’s lease, but Davey wasn’t stupid.

Davey’s apartment had its own mysterious leaks, but he’d grinned through it thus far. Part of it was laziness. Part of it was money, because of course it was. Maybe he would have been able to move with only thirty days notice, but thanks to school budget cuts, his already dismal pay had been slashed just a few weeks before. Moving on a teacher’s salary was going to be difficult enough; now his teacher’s salary was even smaller.

“Capitalism is homophobic,” Davey said into his arms, head still down on the table.

“Perhaps. But until you start a revolution against it, you’re gonna have to find a way to play the game, my dear,” Medda said.

Charlie snorted. “Picture us at the head of a revolution.”

“That’d be… interesting.”

Medda resumed typing. “While we’re complaining about our miserable lives, may I complain about emails?”

Both Davey and Charlie groaned in sympathy.

“You been slaving over those all day,” Charlie said, squinting at the screen. “What’s up? Is it about the jazz choir performance?”

“Bingo. Charlie, be a dear and tell me if this sounds too bitchy?”

Charlie grinned, coming forward to read it for her.

She sighed. “Miscommunication about times, sparkly vests and dresses for twenty children, lord. I’ve been emailing the place they’re performing for two days. Medda Larkin is a self-confessed terrible writer, let it be known here and now. What’s the then-than rule again?”

Charlie put up his hands. “Don’t look at me. I can play you Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, if you want.”

“I’m good. David?”

Davey sat up, suddenly remembering he was an English teacher. “Than with an a is used to draw comparisons. Then with an e is used in relation to time or order of events.”

Medda chuckled. “I have no idea what you just said.”

“What’s the sentence?”

“‘We are more blank overjoyed to have this opportunity.’”

“That’d be than with an a,” Davey answered. “Comparison.” If he were in a better mood, he’d be willing to give them an entire language arts lesson (complete with a song to remember the rule). “Back to me now?”

Charlie played a little jingle on the piano. “Rant away.”

Medda snapped her fingers. “Why don’t you find a roommate?”

“A roommate?”

Charlie gasped, very nearly dropping a stack of sheet music in excitement. “You so should! They could help you with rent, and you’d be less lonely.”

“I am not lonely!”

“Come on. Are you really content just coming home to your cat every night? Maybe another personality around the house could… I dunno, brighten things up a bit.” Charlie widened his eyes. “And it could send you on a new adventure.”

“I don’t need any adventures, thank you,” Davey said. “I get enough adventure trying to navigate my way through kids’ essays.” 

(He loved his students. Really, he did. He would just never understand how you could still misspell ‘remember’ by age fourteen.)

Medda shrugged. “It might be your only option, kid. Money-wise, I mean. And Crutchie’s right; a little company never hurt anybody.”

Davey rested his cheek on the heel of his hand, squishing it up over his eye. One small issue: he really did not want a roommate. He liked solitude. He enjoyed not having to worry about anybody else breaking the dishwasher or mixing together laundry and dyeing all the whites pink. But they were right about the money of it all. Maybe he was going to have to sacrifice his peace and quiet--not for the “adventure” Charlie insisted upon, but so that he didn’t wind up homeless. He wasn’t crazy about it. But desperate times equaled desperate measures.

“Maybe,” he said.

Medda patted him. “You’ll figure it out. You’re a big boy now.”

He moaned and put his head back down on the desk. “I don’t wanna be!”

-

After the school day had ended and Davey had finished the day’s grading, he made his way down to the library.

Buttons (some students called her Miss Buttons, but she was fine with omitting the miss) rolled her eyes when she saw him. She was the school librarian and also happened to have a massive crush on Jojo, one of the algebra teachers. “Here to get another book for yourself rather than a student?”

The library was big and well-stocked, and damn if Davey wasn’t going to take advantage of that. Buttons hated it. “I spend over half of my life at this place. I’ve earned book rights,” Davey called as he swept Jane Eyre off the shelf and carried it over to her desk.

“Haven’t you already read Jane Eyre?” she asked, but her eyes had a smile in them now.

“Yeah, in college. But I got a sudden urge to revisit.”

“You know, normal people get cravings for food,” Buttons said. “Not books.”

Davey smiled, sitting on the big wooden desk. “Well, I’m not normal.”

“I don’t think any English teacher is.” She tucked the book into his bag, then rooted through it for food. “So how’s your house drama going?”

He bit his lip. “Well, Medda and Charlie think I should try and find a roommate.”

Buttons pulled out a protein bar. “A roommate? That could be exciting.” She bit into it and screwed up her face. “This is disgusting. How can chocolate be so disgusting?”

“It’s healthy chocolate, that’s how. And I mean, I trust their judgement, and I might not have a choice. I just don’t honestly know how you even go about finding a roommate.”

She shrugged. “There are websites,” she said through another mouthful of bitter chocolate. “Like, roommates.com. Here, come behind the desk. Let’s get you signed up for one.” He spun around obediently.

Who knew there were so many roommate websites?

“Okay, you think you wanna do this?” she asked, after they’d entered an email address.

He sighed. “I got nothing to lose.”

“Okay, so you put in the name, area, and just generally what you’re looking for. You want both guys and girls?”

“Sure.”

“Any age?”

“Um, can I say above eighteen and below forty?”

“Reasonable. Pets?”

“No, probably not. Jekyll isn’t crazy about dogs. And I don’t want him eating somebody’s hamster.”

(Buttons had already made fun of him for naming his cat Jekyll, so she didn’t comment on it at this moment.)

“How about smoking?”

“Uh, I don’t know. Should I put yes?”

She looked up at him. “How much time do you have again?”

“Three weeks.”

“Yep, you’re fine with smoking.”

-

As Davey collapsed into bed, he was stunned to see there was already a response to the post he made.

He dragged his laptop into bed. His breathing skipped as he hovered the cursor over the little mail icon, but he shook it off.

It was from a guy who, according to the application, was 26. Smoked, but only outside. No pets. Willing to do chores, pay half of rent… His eyes darted back up to the name.

Jack Kelly.

Seems normal enough, Davey thought. Not a bad choice. There were no pictures, but a phone number was attached. The instinctual strangers-on-the-internet fear kicked in, because for all he knew it could be some sort of murder hotline.

Did he have a choice not to call the potential murder hotline? It wasn’t like anybody else was lined up, and this was rather time-sensitive. “If I die, I die,” Davey muttered, reaching for his phone and dialing. The area code was familiar, at least.

He shot a worried glance at the clock. It was already nine, so he juggled the possibility of no response, but after three rings, there was a click.

The voice that said, “Hello?” wasn’t the voice of a robot or an alien or a strange old man, as Davey had feared.

“Hey,” Davey replied. “Um, this is David Jacobs? You applied to be my roommate on... a website.”

“Oh!” The guy sounded surprised. “Oh, uh, yeah. I--fuck. I mean shit. I mean darn. Hang on, I wasn’t expecting you to call so soon. I’m washing dishes. Give me a second.”

“Alright?”

There was a clatter as the phone hit presumably a counter, and then a sink was turned off. Then, “Sorry about that. David, you said?”

“Yes,” Davey said. This man seemed quite rambly; he tried to search for positives. Washing dishes. Washing dishes was a normal, domestic thing to do. “And you’re Jack Kelly?”

“That’s me. So... you callin’ to tell me you’re accepting or declining?”

“Uh, neither, really. I was actually calling to ask if we could meet up in person. You know, kind of an inofficial interview. We could meet up at this coffee place near my work, just kinda… talk. Whenever works for you, so long as it’s after three-thirty.”

He waited; there was a pause, then an unsure voice. “Okay. Yeah, that sounds fine. How about… Wednesday? At… five?”

“If you’re sure that works.,” Davey noted, carefully.

“No, yeah. Just had to check my working hours. But that works for me.”

“Well,” Davey said, “I guess I’ll see you then.”

-

Jack Kelly entered like a hurricane.

Davey could tell it was him the minute he scrambled in, ten minutes later than the time they agreed on. He had brown skin and long eyelashes and red paint on his jeans, and he made eye contact with Davey almost immediately. As soon as they’d silently registered recognition, he made a breathless beeline over to Davey’s table.

“You David Jacobs?” he asked.

“Guilty.”

Jack reached out to give Davey’s hand a shake that was a little too firm. His fingers were colorful, like his jeans, and warm. The scent of a laundromat clung to him. “Jack Kelly. You know that already, don’t you? Ha. Well. There it is for ya again. Hey, I’m sorry I’m late. I left my bus pass at work and had to run back to get it and I’m still holding your hand, aren’t I? Sorry, just… I’ll put that down.”

Truth be told, Davey hadn’t even noticed that Jack forgot to release his hand after shaking it. The speed of his rambling had him dizzy.

“That’s alright,” he finally said, offering a smile. “I get it.”

Jack blew out a breath, tapping his own thighs. “Aight. I’m gonna go order something to drink. I need caffeine. You want anything?”

“Oh, um, no, I’m good.” Davey gestured to the latte sitting atop his copy of Jane Eyre.

He watched Jack lean against the counter, on the toes of beat-up Chuck Taylors. Davey’s head was spinning. He wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting but it hadn’t been a fast-talking pretty Latino guy covered in paint stains.

When Jack returned, he took a long drink and sighed. “Jesus, this stuff is good. I ain’t been here before, I just asked the girl to give me whatever’s strongest, and wow.” He thumped his chest. “I felt that.”

Davey studied him. The guy was young, but it was obvious the caffeine was deeply needed--the bags under his eyes could probably carry children. “How old are you, again?”

“26. Although,” he chuckled, “I probably look ‘bout four times that, huh? What about you?”

“28,” Davey responded. His age made him uneasy, sometimes. As much as he tried to remind himself that there was no stopwatch, he knew his mother was hoping he’d be married with children to a nice Jewish girl by thirty and it was fast approaching. (She’d given up on the girl part of that equation after he came out to her, but the rest probably still stood.)

Jack clearly didn’t perceive any of this. “Nice.”

“So I figure we should talk about being roommates,” Davey said.

Jack pursed his lips. “Uh, yeah.” He suddenly sat up straighter; he seemed fidgety. “I know you probably read the application thingie I sent, but I can do dishes and laundry and pay half the rent.”

“Where do you work?” Davey asked, gesturing to the paint stains. “Do you do art?”

“Oh, er, not really. I work two jobs, actually. Laundromat by day, diner by night. I’m hoping to be able to cut that down to one by movin’ in with someone--part of my master plan, you know.”

Without even realizing it, Davey felt a pang of sympathy. Two jobs. Christ, he sometimes got overwhelmed with his one. 

It was strange, though. Why would a guy living alone work two jobs? Minimum wage might be inhumane and hardly enough to live on (a whole other rant he could go on), but Davey knew from experience that a person providing only for themself could usually scrape past with a single job.

There was definitely something--something that was off, and thanks to dealing with middle schoolers as their widely-considered enemy, he took pride in his ability to weed a lie out of someone. Unfortunately, he couldn’t place a finger on what it was, so he wasn’t sure where to start here. 

“And you’re a teacher, ain’tcha?” Just as Davey was about to nod, Jack leaned forward and knocked over his coffee--right into Davey’s lap.

“Shit!” Davey yelped, jumping out of his seat. “Oh, wow that’s hot.”

“Oh my God,” Jack was saying. “Oh my God, I--I am so sorry. Here, let me… I’ll get some…”

Davey was still hissing through his teeth when Jack returned with an armful of napkins and started dabbing frantically at the stains on Davey’s pants, stuck on a loop of apologies (both to Davey and the worker who had come to help clean the floor). The heat was finally dissolving into something bearable, but that didn’t change the fact that Davey was standing with soaked—probably ruined—pants, covered in soggy bits of napkin. “Wow.”

Jack was under the table, feeling around for the empty cup. When he found it, he started to stand back up only to hit his head on the edge, hard enough that it would’ve fallen over had the worker not immediately grabbed it.

Davey ran a hand down his face.

The fact that this man was the biggest disaster he’d ever met said something, considering he spent his life at a middle school. He took his seat again, trying and failing to hold the cloth of his pants away from his skin. 

“Are you okay?” Jack asked.

“A little damp and burned, but I’ll live.”

“Look, I am so sorry,” Jack repeated, running a hand through his dark hair and subtly rubbing the spot he hit.

Davey picked up his book. The pages were soaked, and coffee dripped off of the blue spine. “Wow,” he breathed, for probably the fourth time.

Jack offered him another napkin, then a ragged grin. “So,” he said. “You’ll get back to me?”

-

“So,” Medda said when Davey entered her classroom the next morning, not looking up from her piano. “How was your meeting with your future soulmate?”

Davey sighed.

“I take that as a ‘yes, Miss Medda, you were right, you always are, I bow down to you, he was wonderful and we’re getting married, you are my God.’”

“Okay, first of all, that sounds twenty percent kinkier than I’m comfortable with,” Davey responded, settling into her office chair while she was on the piano bench. “And second of all, nope. He showed up late, spilled scorching coffee into my lap, then hit his head trying to clean it up.”

“Charming.”

Davey slouched, twisting side to side in the chair. “And there was something about him. It seemed like he was hiding something?”

Charlie hustled into the room, only using one crutch as the other hand held two coffees. They were, of course, the reason for his nickname Crutchie, used only by friends--Davey had originally been opposed to it, because he felt like it was insensitive, but Charlie genuinely did want to be called by it. Students usually called him Mr Morris, so it wasn’t like he heard it often anyway.

Instead of elbow crutches, today he had his old underarm ones with mini pillowpets on the pads. 

“Hey, ladybug and panda are back!” Medda said.

“Wore ‘em just for you, Miss Medda.” He beamed when he saw Davey. “You find a roommate?”

Medda shook her head. “Nope. Apparently the guy he met was a big giant mess.”

Charlie pouted. “How so? Was he a jerk? Also get the hell outta that chair, Papa needs to sit.”

“No,” Davey said, standing. “He wasn’t a jerk.” And the more he thought about it, he hadn’t been. Not at all. He’d honestly just seemed like a kid who was having his ass kicked by the world. He had apologized countless times for spilling the coffee, and it wasn’t like he’d meant to. Still, Davey took the lateness and the clumsiness as warning signs. He didn’t honestly want to live with someone who seemed so messy, so unreliable.

Medda explained the tardiness and coffee spilling.

“And he ruined Jane Eyre,” Davey said. “Buttons is gonna gut me like a fish.”

Charlie tilted his head, setting down he and Medda’s coffees. “Well… is he cute?”

“Not exactly my top priority,” Davey says. “...but, yeah.”

Because he was, the more Davey thought about that too. His hair had looked like it needed a good washing, but it was dark and ruffled and sue him, Davey liked boys with messy hair. He also liked boys with brown eyes. “I don’t know,” he sighed.

“Well, let’s see if you have any other requests,” Medda suggested. “Crutchie, open it up, will you?”

Charlie set down his pillow-petted crutches carefully and then wheeled over to the computer, logging into the website. “Looks like you got two more,” he said, sounding surprised. Then his voice grew more concerned. “And this one owns… three sugar gliders.”

“Sugar gliders?” Medda echoed, mystified.

Davey moved closer to the screen. “Apparently she had four but one drowned in her toilet. Wow.”

“Age?” Medda asked.

“Thirty-eight. Smokes inside. ‘If you use my color safe shampoo, I will break you,’” Charlie read, raising his eyebrows.

“Uh, let’s open the other one,” Davey said.

“This one attached a picture,” Charlie said. He clicked it open and his jaw dropped. “Ah. Okay. That’s a lot.”

Medda busted up laughing.

Davey was just staring in dumb amazement. The photo was of an uncomfortably buff man who had what he was pretty sure were satanic symbols tattooed on his face. “He is not under fifty,” Davey said, when he could speak again. “And it says he’s recovering from a meth addiction.”

Medda was bent over, still wheezing.

“As adorable as he is,” Charlie said, slowly moving the mouse to click out of the website, “I think you might be stuck with coffee-spilling guy, Dave.”

-

And maybe it was Jack’s tired tone when he mentioned his two jobs. Maybe it was his prominent eyelashes and his hasty apologies. Maybe, but Davey chose to tell himself that it was lack of options that forced him to pick up the phone and dial Jack’s number.

“Hello?” Jack asked.

“Hey, it’s David,” Davey said. “Can you move in next week?”

-

After almost sobbing on the phone with joy, Jack had agreed to pack up his stuff and move in. Davey met him at his new place, barren thus far, on Sunday.

Jack’s car was old, small, and clearly well-loved, as Davey decided to put it. The paint was peeling and the engine made a disturbing rattling noise when turned on or off. “Hey,” Jack called, hopping out. Noticing Davey’s expression, he grinned. “Hot rod, huh?” He patted it. “Well. Gets me where I need to go.”

“I guess that’s all that matters,” Davey amended.

Jack pointed to the townhouse with the door left ajar. “This yours?”

“Ours,” Davey corrected. “And yes.”

“Ours,” Jack repeated. He turned to Davey, eyes sparkling, and somehow he looked eight years younger all of a sudden. “I just had to say, thanks. I wasn’t exactly expectin’ a yes after the impression I made.”

Davey managed a smile. “Everyone has those days.” (He ground his teeth to avoid singing Hannah Montana.) “And besides, at least you don’t have sugar gliders or a meth addiction. Long story,” he added, when Jack quirked an eyebrow.

Jack reached into the backseat, which was filled with boxes and… a baby car seat? Davey frowned but decided not to question it, just grabbing a garbage bag full of what was most likely clothing. Jekyll crouched on the kitchen counter, flicking his orange tail.

“Hi, kitty,” Jack said, reaching out and fluffing up the cat’s fur the wrong way. Jekyll ducked away with a meow of protest, bell on his collar jingling.

Jack looked offended. “Well if that’s the way you feel about it.”

“He just hates being petted backwards,” Davey said, putting down the bag. 

“Don’t we all,” Jack replied, grinning. He looked around the place for the first time, and he suddenly seemed ready to cry. “Damn,” he said softly. “Damn, this is… really nice.”

Davey blinked, startled by the new sincerity. The house wasn’t honestly the lap of luxury--it was small, not an apartment but still a townhouse and so directly connected to two on either side of it. They also had upstairs neighbors; Jack and Davey were on the lower floor. The tile floor was cracked in multiple places, and rubbing the walls left your hand covered in powdery tan. Nevertheless, Jack was looking at it like it was a penthouse. At least there were two bedrooms.

Then, an alarm beeped. Jack lifted his wrist; it was coming from a watch. That was strange to Davey for a few reasons, mainly just because he didn’t set it on his phone. “Oh, shit! I mean--darn. I got a shift in half an hour. I gotta run.”

“Really?” Davey frowned; it was almost five in the evening. “When does it go till?”

“Depends. I may not get back till the middle of the night. I’ll be back,” Jack promised, digging through the bag of clothes for a black polo shirt; then he was gone. 

Jekyll watched him go with a thoroughly unimpressed expression.

“He’s an interesting fellow,” Davey said, rubbing at the cat’s ears. “This is temporary, right? And at least he doesn’t own sugar gliders.”

-

By time Davey woke up the next morning, Jack was indeed back--Davey crept down the hall and peeked in to find him passed out on a pile of clothes. “I sincerely hope you at least have a mattress,” Davey muttered, studying him. How Jack had managed to get by in the world on his own thus far was a mystery. In fact, everything about him was a mystery. Davey didn’t even know where he’d lived before this, but wherever it was, he clearly didn’t mind ditching it.

Now that he had a moment to look at Jack without the guy rambling and fidgeting and swearing and spilling things, he collected his thoughts. He looked young--he looked like he didn’t know what he was doing, like he’d been shoved into real life all on his own without an instruction manual.

Davey just could not for the life of him figure out why.

His dark hair was falling over his eyes, and though he was only in boxers from the waist down, Davey was pretty sure he was still wearing his work shirt. Now that he could see it, it appeared Jack worked the overnight at Walgreens.

“Good to know,” Davey whispered, shutting the door softly and hurrying to get ready for the school day.

-

“So?” Charlie demanded, poking his head into Davey’s classroom that morning.

Davey looked up from changing the oil in his diffuser. “So what?”

Crutchie grinned, navigating his way between the desks. “So, did that guy start moving in yesterday?”

“Oh, yeah, he did,” Davey responded. “Also, do you like this scent?”

“I like all your little oil things. And what was he like? As bad as you originally thought?”

Davey took a moment before answering. “A little bit. But I do think I was too hard on him. He is the epitome of a disaster--this much I can already tell. I’m just hoping he wasn’t only bluffing about being able to do chores. He’s only two years below me and for some reason that I still can’t put a finger on he seems so much younger.”

Charlie hummed in understanding. “Maybe you’ll warm up to him.”

Davey squinted. “You and Medda have a bet that I’ll fall in love with him, don’t you?”

“Perhaps.”

He chuckled. “Which side are you on?”

“I’m rooting for the romance,” Charlie replied. “I think you’re such a giant hopeless romantic that you aren’t going to be able to keep your hands off a cute guy living in your house.”

Davey opened his mouth to argue and was surprised to find he didn’t have an honest rebuttal.

-

When Davey got home later, Jack’s car was parked outside once more. He headed up the walkway and into the house (at least Jack had remembered to keep the door shut so Jekyll wouldn’t get out). “Jack?” he called.

There was nothing in response but shuffling that somehow sounded panicked, coming from Jack’s room. Davey started down the hall. This is it, he was thinking, he’s going to turn out to be a drug dealer or something.

He opened the door. And whatever he’d been expecting, it wasn’t what greeted him.

Jack was attempting to shove open the jammed closet door, a toddler in his arms.

The kid couldn’t have been more than two; she looked at Davey through big brown eyes, so dark he couldn’t see where the pupils ended and the iris began. Jack saw Davey standing there and slowly released the closet door, a wince on his face like he expected Davey to ground him or something.

Davey just threw out his arms. “Wh--”

“Uh, hey!” Jack said, setting the baby down on the floor and kicking a box in front of her. “You’re home earlier than I thought.”

Davey did not even remotely know where to begin. “I have already seen the baby.”

Jack scoffed, crossing his arms and attempting to look casual. “What baby?”

Unable to find words, Davey came further into the room, moved the box and gestured wildly at the child. She was oblivious as ever, index and middle fingers in her mouth, blinking up at him.

So this was the big secret.

“Okay, so, funny story,” Jack said, hunching up his shoulders, “I kind of have a kid?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ooooooooh, interesting new things!  
> come visit on tumblr(@livingchancy) and rb the post for this, because it helps me out loads!! also leave a comment telling me what you think about this whole shabang, if you like.  
> i honestly have no clue how long this'll end up being (i do have a vague outline for it though) so we're pretty much going in swinging. here we go folks


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm baaaaaack! hi hi hi, i bring you chapter two of this MESS. davey comes to terms with the idea of his new roommate having a baby, we meet a certain student character, and there's an overabundance of italics. enjoyyyy (it's a bit of a filler, so bear with me--things'll get more exciting!)

_"I will sleep no more but arise, you oceans that have been calm within me! how I feel you, fathomless, stirring, preparing unprecedented waves and storms.”_ \--Walt Whitman, _Leaves of Grass_

-

“I know, I know,” Jack was saying. “I know it looks bad.”

Davey was still just standing there, frozen by pure dumb amazement. Every worst case scenario ran through his head, the first being kidnapping. “Is she yours? Oh, my God, _please_ tell me that is your child.”

“Yes!” Jack said. “She’s mine.”

That was good, but it did beg a larger question. “So you neglected to tell me about having a _whole entire baby!?”_

Jack’s eyes were wide. “I… thought it might be easier to get forgiveness than permission.”

“What the _fuck?”_ Davey wailed.

Of course there was something. Of course. There always was. He couldn’t have just found somebody normal to live with and have that be that, no, he got stuck with some whackjob who decided to keep his toddler a secret until after he’d moved in. Only David Jacobs could have found himself in a situation like this. Only him. He ran a hand through his hair. “I--”

“Look,” Jack said, arms out like Davey was a horse in need of calming. The baby was still between them on the floor. “Look, listen, I know I shoulda told you but I thought that she would’ve been a dealbreaker.”

“Yeah!” Davey answered, exasperated. “It is! That’s why you should have said something!”

“I didn’t wanna risk getting a no, so I--”

“Oh my God,” Davey said, pacing in circles to keep from ripping Jack apart there and then. The toddler watched him, big eyes almost mocking. Luckily for Jack, being a teacher meant he had a go-to plan to calm himself down. He shut his eyes, counted to ten, and opened them again when he’d recovered a shred of patience. “Jack, I cannot live with somebody who has a toddler.”

Jack looked frantic. “She’s a good baby,” he pleaded. “I promise you won’t even know she’s here. And… we don’t have anywhere else to go.”

And something about that.

Something about the way he said that, it had Davey lost.

“Does she… have a mother?” he finally asked, awkwardly. “That she could stay with?”

Jack bit his lip. “Er, no.”

He seemed unwilling to elaborate beyond that. Davey let his head fall into his hands, trying to _think,_ willing his brain to get him out of this. Christ.

When he lifted his head again, Jack had picked up the baby. Davey got a good look at her for the first time; she was pretty much the spitting image of Jack. Like him, her eyes were the first thing that caught Davey’s attention, wide and so dark they could probably be called black. She had his prominent eyelashes, his nose.

“Listen, even if we can only stay for the first month,” Jack kept begging. “I just--I got nowhere else right now.”

“You really should have considered what my reaction to finding out about a baby would be before leaving your last place.”

“I didn’t have a chance to think,” Jack responded. “I was aboutta get evicted, and... I was desperate. And you were the only option near enough where her daycare is, that I could afford, so I… I just kinda did what I had to do.”

Davey had so many questions. So, so, so many questions. But the one he asked first wasn’t one of the most pressing.

“What’s her name?”

Jack blinked. “Huh?”

“The baby’s name?” Davey prompted, and suddenly, Jack’s whole demeanor changed. 

“It’s Luna,” he said, voice soft and colorful like chalk.

“And she’s…”

“Eighteen months,” Jack responded promptly. Davey noticed this, how he couldn’t seem to remember what time his shifts started but knew everything about this child at the drop of a hat. 

They both stood there for a minute, Jack idly rocking Luna back and forth and Davey just rubbing his eyes, thinking, _Charlie and Medda are gonna get a hoot out of this._ It was Jack who spoke up again first. “Look, just… I get it if you want us gone, but gimme a month. Let us stay the first month, right, and I’ll pay my side of the rent and then I can be outta here.”

Davey didn’t honestly see what else he could do. 

Because though he didn’t want to live with a guy who had a baby, let alone this disaster of a guy, he still had a heart. He couldn’t throw Jack and his infant out into the streets. Especially not with both of them giving him those big brown puppy dog eyes. 

And he still needed help with the rent.

“Fine,” he heard himself saying. “A month. But that’s it.”

-

“Whatsa matter, darling?” Medda asked, watching Davey storm into her room the next morning. She was up on a chair, hanging a poster with solfege on it; Crutchie stood below, handing her thumbtacks.

Charlie gasped. “You kissed your roommate.”

“No.”

“Your roommate is taken and you’re sad about it.”

“No.”

“You slept with your roommate.”

“God, no.”

“You--”

“Please stop guessing.”

Medda stepped down from her chair. “Does it have something to do with him?”

“He has a baby!” Davey said.

 _“A baby?”_ Medda and Chariie echoed in unison.

“Yeah! A baby! A whole entire infant! An actual child! A kid! A baby that is his. That he has brought into my apartment without telling me!” Davey gesticulated wildly. Neither the choir teacher nor the choir student teacher appeared to know what to say.

“So he _lied_ about having a baby?” Medda finally asked.

Davey nodded. “I got home last night and he was holding her. He said he thought it might be easier to get forgiveness than permission.”

“Yikes,” Crutchie said.

“Yeah, thanks.”

“You kicked him out, yes?” Medda questioned.

He winced. “No.”

“No?!”

“I’m letting him stay for the first month, because I still need help with rent and he doesn’t have anywhere else to go. I promise this is not me being a pushover,” Davey insisted when she started shaking her head. “I felt bad for them. He’s so young, and he got evicted from his last place and he works two jobs and the kid doesn’t have a mother around and I can’t, Medda. I can’t just throw him to the wolves. That’d feel like kicking two babies out onto the street.”

“He’s only two years younger than you,” Medda pointed out, still skeptical.

“And something tells me he hasn’t had half the life I have,” Davey responded. “I’m sure he hasn’t gone to college, maybe didn’t even finish high school, and I don’t think he’d be struggling so hard if he had parents to fall back on.”

Crutchie was clearly won over. His eyes were sympathetic. “You oughta ask him,” he said. “Where he came from, I mean. Maybe you could help him get back on his feet. Come on, Medda. Sometimes all somebody needs is a support system.”

“I wonder why he doesn’t give up the baby,” Medda mused, though she seemed less against it now. “If he’s struggling so much.”

Davey shook his head. “You should’ve seen the way he looked at that kid. He loves her so much it looks like it hurts.”

“Well,” Medda said, “just be careful.”

Davey smiled, raggedly. “I’m always careful.”

“Not with your books, apparently,” Charlie said, appraising the coffee-soaked Jane Eyre in Davey’s arms. 

-

As Davey watched his seventh period class leave he hovered by the door, subtly closing zippers and wishing them all a good weekend. Really, he was lying in wait for one particular student--she was the last one out the door, and he snagged her before she could get too far.

“Hey. Lauren,” he said, and she turned to him with defensive eyes. “Do you have a minute?”

She crossed her arms. “I like being called Smalls,” she said. That was her last name. It was still only a month into the school year, and Davey struggled a bit with nicknames.

“Right. Sorry. Can I talk to you?”

She sighed through her nose. “‘Bout what?”

“Your grade,” he says. “You’re failing my class.”

“Actually, I have to take the bus,” she said, backing away.

“Lauren--”

“Smalls.”

“Smalls. If you need help, I’m happy to give it to you. I know you’re smart; I’ve seen your sketches.”

And he could tell. She wasn’t the best speller (on the rare occasions she turned things in), but it wasn’t a lack of competence or understanding. It seemed like lack of time, or effort, to Davey. 

She looked down at the floor, short hair falling a bit into her eyes. “I don’t need help,” she said at last, through her teeth. “Thank you.”

“I just--”

“I really have to catch the bus,” she insisted, taking another step backward.

“I really am just here to help, Smalls,” Davey said, borderline resigned. He cared about his kids; he wanted them to do well, really, he did. But Medda had taught him that he honestly just couldn’t fix everything, as fucking excruciating as it was. Sometimes he had to step back and let a kid make the choice. And clearly, Smalls had made hers.

He’d kept an eye on her all through the semester, from the moment she failed to hand in beginning-of-the-year medical papers and emergency contacts. She sat in the back, usually doodling in the composition notebook he’d supplied her, since she hadn’t shown up with one. Occasionally, the essays or vocab papers she turned in were covered in her drawings. They were beautiful, dragons and flowers and geometric designs.

“Thanks,” she said, “but I’m fine.”

She turned and all but ran out of the room. Davey watched her go--which was when he noticed the bruises on her arms.

-

After living with Jack and Luna for a few days, Davey realized it wasn’t as much of a disaster as he’d been anticipating.

This was mostly because he hardly ever saw either of them.

Jack still had to work two jobs, since he had to find someplace new by the end of the month per their agreement. He had the day shift at a diner nearby and, a few nights a week, did the overnight at Walgreens; Davey, of course, stayed at school until five most days and went early in the morning--and he was working toward his credentials to become a classic lit professor, so that kept him busy at night. They saw each other in the late evening on the nights Jack didn’t have to work, but mostly they stayed out of each others’ way.

Luna went to daycare during the day, and Davey wasn’t exactly sure where but she came home in one piece every night so he had made up his mind not to question it. 

However, one night, Jack bustled down the hallway late at night. “Hey, I’m leaving for an overnight,” he said as he passed Davey, who was grading vocab sheets on the couch. Jekyll, curled between Davey’s legs, opened one eye and flicked an ear before realizing the loud paint man wasn’t coming near him so the situation wasn’t worth any concern. (After getting an accidental handprint of paint smeared on him, Jekyll was not Jack’s biggest fan.)

Davey blinked. “Is Luna here?”

“Oh, yeah, she’s in her crib,” Jack replied, searching for his keys.

Now more than a little panicked, Davey sat up. “You’re expecting me to watch her?”

Jack frowned, like he hadn’t even thought of that.

“What did you do at your last place for overnights?” Davey said. “Please don’t tell me you just left her alone in the house.”

Jack looked embarrassed. “I didn’t really have a choice,” he said. “And she usually just slept through it. It was only for a few hours, I figured she’d be alright till I got back in the morning.”

Christ.

“So this is going to be my job? Watching her three nights a week on your overnight shifts?”

“I swear you won’t even have to do anything.” Jack pulled the keys out of their hiding spot in pocket of his jacket.

“Jack--”

“You’ll be fine!” He unlocked the door.

“I don’t know how to take care of a baby, Jack--”

“I’m late,” Jack said, closing the door behind him, and just like that Davey was alone in his apartment with an infant.

For the most part, he was right. Luna slept like a rock through most of the night--thank God for small blessings--although she did wake up and start crying once. 

Davey jumped away from his computer and scrambled down the hall. He hesitated before opening the door, stupid as it was. He didn’t know how to do this, and he even debated just letting her cry herself out but her sobs tugged at his heart too much to leave her. 

He went in. Unfortunately, while fumbling for the light switch, he slipped on a rattling stuffed snake and fell flat on his back.

“Motherfucker,” he hissed under his breath, pushing himself up and fumbling for the switch from the floor. Luna’s cries were unaffected by the noise. Davey stumbled to the crib and leaned over it, a little panicked. “Hey,” he said, in the softest voice he could muster while grappling with the knowledge that he’d probably just put out his back for a week.

Did she want to be held? Was that how you quieted a baby?

He lifted her out of the crib after a few moments, holding her a bit awkwardly in his inexperience. She seemed grateful for the touch, though she tugged at his shirt and whimpered for Jack. 

“Listen,” Davey said, in a moment when her blubbering paused. He pulled her back a bit to look her in the eyes. “Listen, can you and I come to an understanding here? I don’t know how to take care of a baby. Will you please make this easy on me? You gotta sleep, and I gotta do some work, so can we put our differences aside and stop crying?”

She was unconvinced by the peace offering.

She cried for a good while, but it didn’t end in catastrophe--after whining out “papi” a few times, she proved to be too tired to sustain any real anguish and fell asleep in a puddle of drool against Davey’s shoulder.

Thus ended Davey and Luna’s first interaction.

Davey set her back into the crib with excruciatingly slow movements, desperate not to wake her up again. He got to looking around Jack’s room.

The floor was like a minefield, covered in all sorts of baby toys. For the fact that Jack had only been here a few days, it was impressive how fully he’d unpacked. There was a mattress on the floor across from the crib, though no bedframe. The room smelled like cheap cologne and a bit like apple pie, most likely thanks to the job at a diner. What really caught Davey’s attention, though, was a glimpse of color inside the cracked-open closet.

At first he figured he shouldn’t snoop, but fuck it. He was left alone with this guy’s baby. Indulging some curiosity was probably the only payment he was going to get.

He crept to the closet and pulled it open slowly.

“So that’s where the paint stains come from,” Davey murmured.

The interior of the closet was coated in a layer of artwork. It reminded Davey of Smalls, although of course Jack’s looked like it’d been made by an older person. From wolf doodles on Walgreens receipts to sunset watercolor paintings on Xerox paper to a rumpled charcoal sketch of Luna on a newspaper. What really startled Davey, however, was a drawing of _him._

It was Davey alright, drawn in blue pen. Jack had drawn him, sitting on the couch, book in hand and Jekyll at his feet.

It was pretty. He looked prettier in the picture than he felt like he was.

He ran a thumb over it. All the pictures were impressive. There were tons of Luna, and tons of a red-headed girl Davey didn’t recognize but clearly served as a regular muse. The supplies Jack had stashed on the floor were pretty dismal--stained, almost-empty bottles of red, yellow, and blue paint, as well as a few broken charcoal sticks and a roll of paper.

So, disaster roommate was an artist.

Davey had a few questions. 

Where did he find the time to do all this? Why, if he clearly loved it so much, didn’t he pursue some sort of career with it? He kept it all locked in his closet, for Christ’s sake.

And his eyes kept going back to the picture Jack had drawn of him.

Artists found inspiration everywhere. What did he know?

He slid the door back shut, did acrobatics between baby accessories on the floor again, then closed the door behind him with a sigh.

Blessedly, Luna did sleep through the rest of the night. “I guess I’m officially the nanny for three nights a week,” Davey muttered as he got into bed.

-

Sunday evening, Davey was thinking about Smalls and watching Once Upon a Time as Jack fed Luna her dinner in the kitchen a few feet away. (Davey had originally started watching Once because his mother loved it and it gave them something to connect over--he was now fully immersed because Captain Hook was probably the hottest fucking man to ever grace television.)

He paused it, stood and stretched, then headed over to fix something for himself to eat, too. Jekyll slunk into the kitchen after him, curious at the prospect of food. Luna squealed when she saw the cat.

“What’s that?” Davey heard Jack ask her. 

She made another squealing noise somewhat resembling “key,” which Davey could only assume was her version of “kitty.”

“What does kitty say?” Jack asked, digging for a fork.

Luna giggled as he got close to her face and meowed.

“And who am I?”

“Papi,” she said with an open-mouthed smile, which seemed to be the only word she had down pat. Jack leaned down and kissed her temple, mumbling praises.

Then he pointed at Davey. “That’s Davey. Can you say hello to him? Say Davey?”

Again, the noise Luna made sounded like nothing but a coo, but Jack was able to translate. “She doesn’t do great with too many syllables. Guess you’re Day now.”

“Could be worse. Impromptu language lesson?”

“Yep.” Jack sat down beside her, plate in hand, and gently positioned the fork in her hand. He helped her spear a piece of broccoli, then let her put it in her mouth on her own. “I try to get her talking. Also, thank God for your cooking; your leftovers have saved my life.”

“Are you teaching her Spanish too?” Davey asked. He knew Jack spoke it; he’d heard him use it on the phone, or sometimes mumble to himself in it. He talked to Luna in it sometimes too, idle chatter.

Jack nodded, sticking another piece of broccoli when Luna began hitting her fork aimlessly on the plate. “Figure it can’t hurt.”

“It definitely can’t,” Davey replied. 

“Day,” Luna said again, flailing her fork in excitement when Davey raised his eyebrows at her.

“Lune,” Jack sighed when she tossed her fork down onto the tile. “Please, don’t make my life hard. You gonna make me do airplane? Is that it?” He picked up the fork and stuck another vegetable, then made a motor noise while flying it in loops to her mouth. She took it, then looked over at Davey again as she chewed.

Jack smiled a little. “She’s real amazed by you. Sorry about the gawking.”

Davey took his bowl out of the microwave. “Well, I’m honored.”

Luna picked up a carrot with her fingers and stuck it clumsily in her mouth, finally taking her eyes away from Davey. Jack continued on with the business of feeding her, getting her to use the fork as often as he could. Jekyll watched them from his countertop perch.

And it felt strangely nice, for a second, to have a crowded house.

For just a second.

Jack turned to Davey. “You okay? Brain going crazy?”

“Huh?” he said, startled from reverie.

“You seem real distracted--Luna, no! Oh, crap. I mean--shoot.” In the moment that Jack had taken his eyes off her, she’d flung her plate onto the floor. Luna was oblivious to the mess she’d caused, just pounding her tiny hands on the table and smiling.

Davey rushed into action to help him clean it up.

“You don’t have to help,” Jack said, clearly embarrassed as he dunked the plate into the sink and wetted a washcloth.

Davey just shook his head. “It’s fine.”

Jack scooped Luna into his arms and began wiping her face. “Alright,” he sighed. “Let’s try this again, _camorrista._ ” He looked over at Davey. “Thanks again for the clean-up help. I’m real sorry; babies are messy.”

Davey tilted his head, suddenly more tempted than ever to ask Jack about the closet full of artwork. Instead he sighed, then tried for a smile. “Might as well get used to it. I think there’ll be more messes to come.”

Jack grinned. “You can count on that, Day.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> come say hi on tumblr (livingchancy) and rb the post for this story, it gives me a boost!! and if you're liking it, comments are ALWAYS appreciated<33 (PS i'm very forgetful about responding to comments so just know, even if i don't always answer, i appreciate Every Single One) ciao!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HI HI HI. it's everyone's favorite Jack Is A Mess fic. enjoy the ride. we see some les and sarah content now, go us

_“They looked at each other, baffled, in love and hate.”_ \--William Golding, _Lord of the Flies_

-

Buttons stared at the coffee-covered copy of Jane Eyre that Davey had placed before her with a look of exhaustion beyond human comprehension.

“Here,” he offered weakly, handing her another book. “I brought you my extra copy of Leaves of Grass. Walt Whitman as a peace offering.”

She sighed. “I don’t want Whitman.”

“Well, he wouldn’t want you either; he was a homosexual.”

Buttons sent him a glare with a smile behind it, then picked up Jane Eyre and flipped through. The entire thing was dyed some degree of brown, and the pages were wavey and crinkled beyond repair. “How--”

“My first meeting with my new roommate ended in him spilling his coffee. To make a long story short.”

Crutchie spoke up as he headed over, Medda in tow carrying a biography about Elvis Presley. “It’s the crazy roommate I told you about, Miss Buttons,” he said.

“Ah,” she said. “The one who tried to lie about a toddler.”

Every time somebody hashed out the situation Davey became a little more in awe of it. He’d honestly adjusted so quickly to Jack and Luna, even after less than a week, that remembering the absurdity of how they ended up in his house seemed unreal. He shook his head. “I tried my hardest to rescue it, but it just wasn’t happening. I’m sorry, Buttons, really--I can pay for it, if you need.”

She bit her lip. “I shouldn’t, but I’m gonna let you off the hook. Just because I know how broke you are.”

“God bless.”

Medda showed her book to Buttons, who waved a hand and said, “All yours.”

“You’re the greatest,” Crutchie crowed.

Davey pushed himself up to sit on the counter, crossing his legs. “Okay, I have a serious question,” he said. “There’s this student in my seventh period, Lauren. Lauren Smalls. Do any of you know her?”

Medda nodded, wagging a finger as she thought. “She’s in our seventh grade choir. Stands in the back and never sings. She’s always drawing on her arms.”

“Yep. That sounds like the one.”

Crutchie smiled absently. “I’ve talked to her a few times. She seems sweet. Her drawings are amazing; if you get her talking about one, it’s a really great way to open her up a bit. But she’s super quiet.”

Davey shook his head. “She may be, but she’s failing my class. And when I tried to talk to her about it, she couldn’t have possibly run away from me faster. And…”

“And?” Crutchie prompted, looking worried now.

Davey looked up, between their three curious faces. If he was just seeing things, he didn’t want to mention the bruises he thought he’d glimpsed. He had a way of doing that, of exaggerating, of giving his kids more slack than they deserved. He had a soft heart--that was just his way--and sadly, he fell in love with most of his classes. Of course, some of them were awful little demons, but deep down, he cared about each and every one of them in a different way.

People (mostly Les, who’d been in high school when Davey started teaching) were horrified by the idea of him teaching middle schoolers. “The worst of the worst,” Les had said. “Do you not remember middle school? You’ll get eaten alive.”

And Davey had been a bit afraid too, but he’d had no choice but to take the job. Now that he had it, it wasn’t nearly as perilous as one may think.

Sure, the kids were insufferable sometimes. But viewing them as an adult, as a teacher, Davey had realized how transparent the worst of them were.

Though it was useless advice to a child being bullied, it really was true that the bullies were going through their own emotional turmoil. None of it went over Davey’s head. Middle school was awful, he knew that--and if he could ease the awfulness even a little, well, job well done.

“Nothing,” Davey said, shaking his head. “I’m just worried about her, that’s all. Would you two mind keeping an eye on her? And you, too, Buttons, if you see her?”

Medda nodded.

Crutchie looked sad. “I hate how much I can’t help them sometimes.”

“I need to try and corner her again,” Davey sighed, pressing his palms to his eyes.

“You seem so tense, Davey. You really need to get laid or something,” Medda said, when he came back up and blinked away the vigorous rubbing he’d just given his eyes. Crutchie snorted; Davey was less bothered, just giving her that “excuse me?” teacher stare.

“I’m serious!” She put her hands up. “Get on Grindr.”

Davey laughed. “Grindr?” he repeated. “Medda, if I wanted to get laid I’d do it the old fashioned way.”

Buttons looked at him, intrigued now. “Which is?”

“Go to some bar and meet someone.” Davey cupped his chin in his hand and gave Crutchie his best attempt at a seductive smile. “You know… seduce them with poetry over glasses of wine and candlelight.”

Buttons retched.

“Or just sleep with your roommate. Duh,” Crutchie said.

Davey tipped his head back and grinned. “It’s not gonna happen, Crutchie.”

“Why not? He’s only staying for a month. Get some handjobs, relieve some stress, then he’s gone and you never see him again.”

Buttons was on board. “Piano boy’s got a point.”

“Okay, he’s got a baby, first of all.”

Crutchie raised his eyebrows. “Is that the only reason you can think of not to sleep with him?”

Davey opened his mouth to argue, closed it, and scrunched his lips. “You know… I should really be getting to my classroom right about now.”

-

Davey was washing dishes when Jack emerged from his room, holding a basket full of clothes. "Hey," Davey said absently.

"Buenas tardes," Jack sang, ducking into the tiny pantry-slash-laundry-room and beginning to load up the washing machine. He was surprisingly good at laundry--Davey trusted him not to shrink or dye anything. He supposed that parenting had made Jack more adept at chores than he might've originally been, but either way, he was glad.

Davey sighed as he shut off the sink and moved to throw out the sponge, making a mental note to buy a new one.

"Wait!"

He jumped so hard that he dropped it on the floor. "What?" 

"Do you not need that anymore?" Jack asked, emerging from the pantry.

"Er... no."

"Could I have it? For painting," Jack explained when he saw the bewilderment on Davey's face. 

He blinked, remembering artist roommate was a thing. "I mean, sure. Go crazy."

Davey went to pick it up for him, but Jack bent down at the exact same time, so they ended up bumping their heads together. Davey wound up with a hand on the sponge as Jack swore and rubbed his head. "Sorry," they said in unison, and then made eye contact that felt strangely electric for the fact that they were kneeling by the trash can over an old sponge. "Um. Here," Davey said, slowly handing it over to him.

Jack blinked as the moment was broken. "Right. Thanks."

Jack stood first, and then offered a hand to help Davey; with that, he was gone.

Davey watched him go. He wondered how you even used a sponge to paint--and, as he tried to rub away the warmth that Jack's grip had left in his palm, he thought he wasn't making a good case against Crutchie's expectations.

-

He was surprised to see a text from his brother when he’d gotten inside at the end of the day.

Les: sooooo you find a roommate or what Bro  
Davey: Oh boy have I got a story for you  
Davey: You home?  
Les: yaaa i’m with mama and cookie and saz on ft and we’re all dying to know so u better call us  
Davey: Okay, well, I can’t call until Mama’s asleep because there are certain details of the story I need to break to her lightly  
Les: shit so it’s really good huh  
Davey: Language!!!  
Les: bruh i’m 19

-

By the time he’d finished telling the full story of Jack, Les was rolling on the floor and Sarah was staring into the camera in disbelief. Cookie, the family cat, perched on the back of the couch with her ears twitching at the noise of Les’s cackling.

Les had skipped on college and opted for the gap year. He was in a band, so that was part of it, and it was partially because their mother had been having heart problems of late. Les was crazy about his mother and, of course, eager to get out of more schooling, so he took the job. Mayer was around to help, too, so mostly Les was just extra supervision with a drum set.

And Sarah and Davey were living proof that twins were not similar--she’d just recently finished law school to, as she put it, “yell at the bitches that this bitch of a country puts in their courtrooms.” She was on her end of the three-way call from her apartment that she shared with two other angry law students who Davey could currently hear yelling in the background.

“So that’s why I didn’t want Mama to hear,” Davey sighed. “Because I don’t want her to think I’ve become a stepfather.”

Les was gasping for air. “I mean, but you have, right?”

“Only for a month--”

“So the kid doesn’t have a mother?” Sarah asked, dark eyes wide.

“Not that I know of. I haven’t really asked Jack about it, but he has full custody, it seems.” Davey groaned. “Les, stop laughing!”

His younger brother shook his head. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, that’s just so--” He cracked up again, then said, “It’s just so _you.”_

“And what is that supposed to mean?”

Sarah had that smile of hers, that wry one. “Being too much of a pushover to kick somebody out for lying about their child and therefore becoming their part-time babysitter? Yeah. That sounds like you. You’re kind of a whackjob magnet, no offense.”

“I mean, he’s not a whackjob,” Davey insisted, and Christ, he didn’t know why he felt the need to defend Jack. “He and his baby just got the short end of the stick in life. It wasn’t a lack of assertiveness, it was… pity.”

“I just can’t believe you haven’t asked him anything,” Sarah admitted. “Like, I think you’ve got a right to know where the baby came from, where the mother is…”

“Okay, do not go lawyer on me, Saz. I’m not going to interrogate him.”

Sarah giggled. “You should, because now I’m curious.”

Davey stroked Jekyll on the cheek when he leapt onto the couch beside him. “I don’t know, it just feels like it isn’t my business. He’ll be out in a month, and what I know won’t ever matter anyway.”

“I mean, what if he’s, like, kidnapped her? How do you know he’s actually the father if you don’t ask?” Les pointed out.

Davey rolled his eyes. “The resemblance is pretty clear. And even if he did kidnap her, he treats her incredibly well for the fact, so.”

“Not your business,” Sarah agreed, putting up the hand that wasn’t holding her phone in defeat. “Just pray you don’t have to testify in some sort of custody battle.”

Once Sarah had hung up her end of the call, Les stayed on FaceTime with Davey. They didn’t get much time to talk, so they’d be at it for a while. 

Les had moved to the kitchen to root around for some dinner. His phone was propped up against a cereal box. “So how was work today?” he asked, turning the stove dial this way and that. As always when watching Les do domestic things like cooking or cleaning, Davey felt a strange anxiety like he was watching a child play with fire.

Davey just sighed.

“I don’t get what’s in it for you,” Les said. He raised his voice above the clank of dishware as he dug through a cupboard. “I mean, you spend, what, eight hours a day putting up with demon middle schoolers and weird as hell guidelines and insufferable bosses--did Dad even wash this, ew--and what do you get in return?”

“A summer vacation,” Davey offered, grinning. He stopped long ago trying to make his family understand. He’d tried, of course, but it took a certain type of person to appreciate what went into being a teacher, and Les wasn’t that sort of person.

“How’s Crutchie?” Les added, and just as Davey was about to answer, Luna came toddling into the room. She darted through the doorway on unsteady legs, arms flung out in front of her, giggling hysterically--most interestingly, she was coated in paint.

Jack charged into the room after her, shouting her name.

Davey watched, slowly furrowing his eyebrows, as Jack lunged for Luna and missed thanks to almost slipping on a pink puddle. “Hang on, Les, sorry. I think I gotta go.”

“Wh--” Les said, but he hung up and jumped to his feet. While Jack regained his balance against the counter, Davey intercepted Luna.

He looked at Jack. “What the f--”

“Language!” Jack hissed. “I am making my best effort to be a good influence here.”

Davey gestured to the paint-covered baby in his own arms. “How’s that workin’ out for ya?”

Jack made his way over to them carefully, vigilant of puddles, to take Luna from Davey. He looked at the mess she’d left, a trail of paint splatters across the tile, and winced. “I’ll clean it up,” he said, quickly. “I promise.”

“How’d she even--” Davey wiped at a smear of orange paint on his shirt.

“I--I had paint out and I got a call and the second I turned my back she was rolling around on it and then she ran,” Jack sputtered, clearly embarrassed. “I always forget she can walk now.” Awkwardly, he reached out with the fabric of his own shirt and attempted to brush off the paint Luna had gotten on Davey’s clothes. Davey just looked at him.

Luna scrabbled her rainbowed hands at Jack’s shirt collar and cooed in protest of being ignored. “What?” Jack said. “What is it, monster?” He kissed her on the side of the head, staining his own cheek blue. She went to stick her fingers in her mouth but he caught them. “Let’s not eat Papi’s paint. No, no. I’m sorry,” he said again to Davey. “I’ll go get her washed up and then I’ll wipe the floor.”

Davey was a little worried by how many times he’d heard Jack say “I’m sorry” since he’d moved in.

“I’ll get the floor,” Davey said, waving a hand. “You just worry about her. I’m sure your room is a wreck.”

“No, you don’t have to--” Davey gave him the teacher look and Jack immediately closed his mouth. “Well then. We’ll be in the bathroom.”

Davey watched them go, Jack muttering Spanish scoldings to her. For some reason he was oddly caught up in the way Jack looked in his shirt, a large button-up one he clearly reserved for painting--he shook it off and went to grab some towels.

-

_“I got a friend in Baltimore, little Liza Jane…”_

Davey sat up in bed, frowning.

_“Streetcars runnin’ by her door, little Liza Jane.”_

If he wasn’t mistaken or still dreaming, it was two in the morning and there was singing coming from down the hall. And either it was Jack or Luna or a burglar or a ghost. He turned over and tried to go back to sleep.

_“Oh little Liza, little Liza Jane...”_

He fumbled behind him for a pillow and pressed it against his ear.

_“Oh little Liza, little Liza Jane.”_

Davey blew out a sigh. He wasn’t sure how long this song was, but he did know that he had to wake up in three hours and he was unwilling to sacrifice any sleep. He pushed off the covers, swung his legs down to the floor, and padded out into the hall. When he reached Jack’s room he had every intention of telling him to shut it, but what he saw made him stop.

Jack was standing in his pajamas, Luna in his arms. _“I got a friend in San Antone, little Liza Jane,”_ he continued singing to her, _“Tumbleweeds and cactus grow, little Liza Jane.”_

Hand still on the knob, Davey hesitated.

 _“I got a friend in--”_ The note turned sour when he turned and saw Davey. “Oh. Sorry, did I wake you up?”

Finally, he snapped out of his trance. “Uh, yeah,” he admitted, resting his head on the doorframe.

“Sorry,” Jack repeated, eyebrows scrunching. “She, well--she was fussin’, and I didn’t want her to cry and wake you up and the only way to calm her down is to sing to her but I guess that didn’t work anyway, huh?”

He was clearly expecting an angry outburst, as he seemed surprised when Davey said, “It’s fine.”

Luna pawed at Jack’s shirt, lifting a clumsy handful of it to her mouth. She never took her eyes off Davey. Her gaze was weirdly intense; he found himself wanting to look away. Jack nuzzled his nose against her temple, eyes falling shut. Then, he sighed deeply through his nose and straightened.

Davey took a chance and headed into the room. “You tired?” 

He carefully navigated around various singing pianos and rattling stuffed animals covering the floor. The room wasn’t exactly immaculate, but he was starting to realize that single parenting wasn’t a task to be sneezed at. He didn’t blame Jack for the mess.

Jack sank down onto the floor, back against the crib. “Yeah. Obvious?”

“Little bit.” Davey sat down too. “You’re good with her.”

“She’s everything to me,” Jack answered simply.

Davey believed him.

“Sorry again I woke you up,” Jack said again, looking up from wrestling his shirt out of her mouth. “You can go back to sleep.”

Davey just shrugged. “Where’d you learn that song?”

A smile crossed Jack’s face, dramatized by shadows of the dim room. “Liza Jane? Luna’s mom always sang it. I got a whole lot of songs, though--most of ‘em are ones my mom used to sing to me when I was little. Lune’s favorite is a Spanish one. Los pollitos. It’s about baby chickens. I’ll spare you.”

Yeah, Jack wasn’t any Adele. But something about the way he sang to Luna softened the sharp edges. It did beg a larger question, though.

“If it’s not too personal,” Davey said, “do you… I mean, you don’t have any family that could help you out?”

Jack idly petted at Luna’s hair. He was silent for so long Davey didn’t think he was going to answer. Then,

“No,” he said, sounding more defeated than Davey had ever heard. “I never had a dad around, and my mom came outta the foster system. Second she was eighteen, her parents tossed her to the curb. She had me right after. I had her around till I was seven”--he took a moment, cleared his throat--“maybe eight? Then she OD’d, and I went into the system, and… well.” He didn’t take his eyes off Luna. “Apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, I guess.”

Davey felt a twist in his gut. “I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be. S’all done now. And this one’s gonna be different. Me and her, we’re gonna break the Kelly family curse. If anything came from it, it’s that I ain’t leaving her alone in this world.”

He had more questions, specifically about Luna’s mother, because having a baby was a team effort. But it felt dangerous to make Jack’s business into his own. Instead, he said, “Good for you. Really.”

Jack smiled. “I’m tryin’.”

“Well,” Davey said, standing back up. “I’ll leave you guys. I gotta be up in a bit.”

“Sorry again.”

“Is it okay if I say I am too?”

Jack chuckled. “About my tragic backstory?”

“Well, yeah. But I mean about making assumptions about you. You’re… you’re a good guy.”

“Glad you think so. But let’s stop saying sorry.” Jack bounced Luna, who was still staring at Davey. “Can you say night-night to Dave?” he asked her.

She babbled at Davey in her small voice, not saying anything he could hear but still earning herself a few kisses from Jack. 

“Goodnight, Luna,” Davey replied. He took one last look when he reached the doorway, then headed back to bed.

A few moments after he’d laid down, Jack’s voice bled back under his door.

_“I got a friend in Chicago, Little Liza Jane…”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> u know the drill, say hi on tumblr livingchancy, rb my post, leave a comment if you're feelin generous bc i Thrive off of validation, gday!!!!


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HELLOOOO. warning, i haven't proofread this. like at all. so its probably interesting. ummm we meet The Neighbors, there's some paint shenanigans, enjoy.

_“’Why did you do all this for me?’ he asked. ‘I don’t deserve it. I’ve never done anything for you.’ ‘You have been my friend,’ replied Charlotte. ‘That in itself is a tremendous thing.’”_ \--EB White, _Charlotte’s Web_

-

Davey was immersed in Once Upon a Time on his couch. Jekyll lazed in his lap, Jack was off at an overnight shift and had been for about half an hour, and Luna was sleeping in her crib; Davey basked in the knowledge that all his ducks were in a row.

It was short-lived knowledge.

He was just starting a new episode when he heard the unmistakable noise of the front door creaking open. He narrowed his eyes and sat up. “Jack?” he called. It seemed unlikely, but then who else could it be? Davey was just considering what may have happened (and praying Jack didn’t get fired) when a strange man wandered straight into the living room.

Davey had never personally experienced a fight or flight response, but in that moment he understood. He shifted back on the couch, mouth open, eyes huge in terror until he realized that the guy was holding Luna.

Clearly, he had no clue how to hold a baby. He was gripping her under the arms and holding her about two feet in front of him. “Would you care to explain why your child wandered into my house?” he said.

Luna giggled. “Day,” she cooed.

The stranger put her down and she toddled over to the couch. “Key,” she squealed when she saw Jekyll, who, to his credit, endured her clumsy petting with grace.

“Um--” Davey spluttered.

“I’m your neighbor,” explained his intruder. “A little bit ago, we heard the door open. Naturally we got scared shitless, but less so when _she_ ran up to us. My roommate wanted to keep her, but I set out and try to return her. I thought I’d have to do a bit of door-to-door sleuthing, but your front door was open at a width that looked suspiciously perfect for a toddler to fit through.” He raised his eyebrows. “You know, usually people bring a bottle of wine, or a plant, or cookies. I have to say I’ve never recieved a baby as a housewarming gift.”

Davey jumped up from the couch. “Oh, my God. I’m so sorry. She just figured out how to work doors, I… I should’ve kept a better eye on her.”

His neighbor hummed in affirmation.

“What’s your name?”

“Spot,” he said, reaching out and giving Davey’s hand a shake so firm his whole body was jolted. “And my roommate is Race. We noticed you move in; I’m not exactly the socializing type, but he’s been meaning to come say hello to you. I guess this solves the problem.”  
Davey picked Luna up, rescuing Jekyll from her fascination with tugging on his ears. “I’m real sorry. She’s not actually mine, she’s my roommate’s.”

Spot raised an eyebrow. “Well, babysitter of the year.”

“Thank you so much for bringing her back.”

“No trouble.” Spot huffed a little. “Although if you let her out again and Race can’t resist adopting her, don’t blame me.”

Davey carried Luna over to her high chair and placed her in it, just as a place to put her. “Well. We’re both busy as hell, but we can try stopping over sometime. You know, without a baby.”

“So are you and your roommate--” Spot linked his fingers together in a gesture that somehow Davey was able to interpret.

“Oh. No. It’s just a temporary thing, since we’re both having money issues. We actually--well, I put up an online advertisement and he responded.”

Spot looked impressed. “You’re takin’ one for the team, letting somebody with a baby move in.”

_You have no idea._

Spot shrugged. “Well, I’ll see ya.” He turned, then stopped to face Davey once more. “Oh, also, Race told me to ask you to stop playing Selena so loud, but between you and me, I dig it.”

Davey blushed, on Jack’s behalf. “That would be my roommate. I’ll take it up with him.”

Spot nodded, patted Jekyll, and left--and thus concluded Davey’s first interaction with the neighbors.

-

Davey came home late one night and found Jack painting in the kitchen, wearing his designated paint shirt. Luna was in nothing but her diaper and a variety of color splotches, sitting on the table and fingerpainting on her own little strip of paper.

Jack indeed had music playing--though it wasn’t Selena this time. Elvis Presley blasted through the kitchen, and he whistled along to Hound Dog passionately. He was using the sponge Davey had given him to dot some green paint onto a landscape Davey couldn’t see from his angle. “Hello,” Davey said, setting down his groceries on the little strip of table they weren’t taking up.

“Oh! Hi. Hey. Hola.” Jack was already scrambling to clean up. “I lost track of time. Sorry.”

Davey carried some laundry detergent over to the pantry. “It’s fine, you don’t have to stop.” 

Jack smiled a little, washing his own hands and then toting the paint-covered Luna over to the sink to wash her off. “It’s aight. I would’ve had to stop soon anyway, my… my resources are pretty much--what’s the word, deleted?”

“Depleted,” Davey amended, almost absentmindedly, and then he frowned. “Wait, you mean you’re out of art stuff?”

“Yeah.” Jack yelped when Luna splashed him with sink water, then growled playfully and splashed her back. “You watch yourself, _chiquita_ ,” he said lightly. “You already ruined my red by mixing it with green.” He went back to the business of scrubbing her clean. Davey, having tucked away the last of his groceries, blinked curiously at Jack’s makeshift paint setup. 

His bottles of blue, red, and yellow were all cut down the middle where he’d clearly scraped the very last of the paint out. The landscape Jack had been working on sent a little jolt of surprise through Davey. “This is really pretty,” Davey said. It _was_ pretty--a simple forest scene. Seeing the few resources it had come from only made it more impressive.

“Oh. Thanks.” Jack hurried to grab it, seeming embarrassed. “Sorry. I’ll get that outta your way.”

Davey opened his mouth, ready to reassure him it was fine, but Jack was already hurrying off down the hall to tuck it into his room.

Luna was still sitting in the sink, examining the sponge Jack had been using and drawing a great deal of amusement from squeezing the colorful water out of it. Jack reentered just in time to snatch it before she put it in her mouth.

Elvis Presley still crooned through the kitchen. Jack sang along to make her giggle, pitching his voice deeper and sweeter as he toweled her dry. “You were always on my mind…” 

Davey smiled a little.

When Jack had picked her back up, Davey asked, “So, when are you able to get more stuff for painting?”

“Oh, not for a while, probably,” Jack answered, balancing her on his hip as he scrubbed off the plate of paint. “That last stuff I got when I had just a little extra money, a while ago. But most of what I got just gets eaten up. You know, food, rent, bills, diapers, daycare…”

Davey did know. Probably not as well as Jack did, but he was familiar with a paycheck’s disappearing act.

“That sucks,” he sympathized.

Jack shrugged, offered him a grin. “Not much I can do. I gotta keep house hunting, though, so that oughta keep me from doin’ any art till we’re settled in a new place.” Luna was beginning to fuss, which got him right back into dad mode. “Alright. You want your dinner, don’tcha, Lune? C’mon, _vamos, mi cielita._ Let’s get you fed.” He stripped off his paint shirt, undoing the buttons with surprisingly adept fingers.

Davey really, _really_ tried not to stare at Jack’s bare chest as he fumbled for his regular shirt and pulled it back on.

He really failed.

He also tried not to grieve over the fact that Jack couldn’t afford to sustain what seemed like his one real passion. But as he watched Jack scraping together Luna’s dinner, he couldn’t help the pang in his chest.

-

“Crutchie, you love me, don’t you?”

Crutchie looked suspiciously up from the cello he was tuning. “Depends on what you’re about to ask me for.”

Davey frowned. “How do you know I’m going to ask for something?”

“You’ve got an I’m About To Ask For Something face. I’ve become accustomed to it. You’re wearing it right now.”

He sighed. “Fine. Fair. Do you love me enough to help me break into the art room and steal supplies?”

Crutchie struck an extremely sour note. “Excuse me?”

Davey sat up from his slouched position. He was sort of expecting a response of this sort. “Okay, listen. It’s for a good cause. And I’ve got a plan.”

“You think I’m about to cross Wiesel?” Crutchie asked, eyes huge. “If he catches us stealing stuff from his room…. You don’t think he isn’t gonna do literally everything in his power to get our asses booted from this school--no, from this entire state?” 

Yeah, the school happened to have one of the grumpiest art teachers in the history of art teachers. Not many people were particularly interested in the position, in part since the electives programs got so little funding. So Wiesel, who famously yelled loudly enough at kids to be heard four rooms down, had stuck for years upon years. Davey couldn’t remember a time before him, at least. He reigned as the king of suffering and spring papier-mâché projects.

“Crutchie, please,” Davey begged. “I swear I’ve got a plan. There’s no way he’ll find out. And I need help. He leaves early every Wednesday, right? So, we go this Wednesday, use Medda’s keys--she’s got keys for all the elective buildings, right?--we snatch some paint, we leave. Easy.”

Crutchie pursed his lips. “Why the hell do you need to steal art supplies, anyway?”

Davey felt his face heat up. “It’s for my roommate.”

 _Now_ Crutchie looked interested.

Davey was beginning to realize there was no way of saying it that didn’t make him sound obsessive. “He… well, he’s an artist, but he can’t afford supplies. I just feel bad.”

“An artist, huh?”

“Why are you smirking like that?!”

“He just honestly sounds more and more impossible for you to resist the more I learn about him.”

“Well then,” Davey said, praying he wasn’t blushing, “consider this a stepping stone in our relationship. Please?”

-

“I can’t believe I let you rope me into this.”

“We aren’t doing anything you didn’t agree to.”

“That’s exactly my point.” Crutchie glanced over at him. “Are you scared?”

“No,” Davey said. “You?”

“Nah,” Crutchie said.

“...Maybe a little.”

“Yeah, I’m terrified.”

Davey was crouching by Wiesel’s desk, watching Crutchie attempt to figure out which key on the ring Davey may or may not have stolen from the desk was the one that opened the supply closet. 

He’d made sure that the angry art teacher in question would be gone before this happened--he left early after school on Wednesdays, for his appointments at the chiropractor (as Davey had found out thanks to his apparent love for oversharing in the teacher’s lounge). After that, well, it was only a matter of getting their hands on Medda’s keys, because she had keys for most of the elective rooms. Everybody trusted her with them.

“Bingo!” Crutchie whispered.

Davey leapt to his feet and hurried through the dimness as Crutchie pushed the closet door open. 

“Damn,” Crutchie murmured, eyes glinting.

Davey had to agree. The wall-to-wall shelves were fully stocked with bottles of paint, brushes of all sizes, boxes and boxes of markers and crayons and colored pencils and oil pastels, every color and size and weight of paper imaginable, and more. “I didn’t even know watercolor in tubes existed,” Davey mused, pulling down a basket of them.

“I didn’t know half of this stuff existed.” Crutchie rooted through a box of chalk bits. “Whaddaya suppose they use chalk for?”

Davey took a breath and opened up the bag he had brought along with him. “Now, where to start?” he muttered.

-

When Davey got home, Jack was watching Bear In The Big Blue House with Luna. His last place hadn’t had cable, since it was an extra bill every month, but he had a collection of DVDs with old kids shows on them. (Among this collection were also Care Bears, Angelina Ballerina, and Richard Scarry’s Busytown.) Jack still wasn’t fully accustomed to having cable, but he did enjoy having Dora at hand.

“I always get oddly emotional when he sings his goodbye song,” Jack said in lieu of greeting, with a small grin. Luna’s eyes remained on the television--any part with the moon was her favorite, since it was also named Luna.

Davey chuckled a bit. Then, he brandished his bag of stolen supplies. “Hey,” he said, “I’ve got a surprise for you.”

Jack’s eyebrows shot up. “For me?” He sat up a bit straighter.

Luna blinked curiously as Jack began to open up the bag, seeming nervous like he was afraid Davey had stashed a snake in it or something equivalent. Needless to say, he was pretty stunned when he fished out a bottle of red paint.

His jaw dropped as he emptied it all onto the carpet. Davey hadn’t dared swipe too much, but he had gone for a bottle of each color of paint, some brushes, a small stack of paper, and a few of the fancy sketching pencils. “Where did you--” he suddenly sobered. “Dave, if you bought all this, I… I can’t accept it.”

“Well, don’t worry, because I didn’t buy it.” Davey pocketed his hands. “I don’t think you’ll snitch, so I’ll tell you I might have swiped it from the school art room.”

Jack let out a sharp, surprised laugh. He opened his mouth to speak, then gave up and closed it.

Davey wasn’t sure what he was expecting, but it definitely wasn’t a hug. That was exactly what Jack did, though--hopped up to his feet and lunged at him in a bone-crushing embrace. “Thank you,” he said, into Davey’s neck. “I mean it. I really mean it. Thank you.”

Davey patted his back--a little awkwardly, but the sentiment was there.

“It was no problem.”

Jack dropped back to the floor and stared at the bottles, letting out another little laugh. Davey was honestly worried he might cry. “Lookit, Lune,” he said, picking up one of the brushes and running it across her cheek. “We got some donations.”

Luna grabbed for the brush and instantly attempted to stick it in her mouth.

“As you do,” Davey said.

-

Jack settled with his paints in the kitchen that night after he’d put Luna down in bed. He took up half of the table and Davey was stationed at the other end grading essays.

Jack sung to himself as he messed around with the paint, not really making any picture yet--just admiring the colors. When Davey stood up to grab some water, Jack said, “Hey, you wanna try painting something?”

Davey blinked. “Oh, no,” he laughed. “I’m a terrible painter.”

Jack grinned. “You don’t gotta be a good painter. Come on.” He covered his hand in blue paint, then printed it down on the paper in front of him. “You can just make a handprint.”

“I really should finish those essays--”

“One handprint,” Jack insisted. “It’ll take the edge off.”

Davey wrinkled his nose. “I don’t wanna get paint all over me, though.”

Jack rolled his eyes. “That’s the fun of it! Really.” When Davey shook his head, Jack bit his lip and, before Davey could even see it coming, dipped a finger in red paint and dotted it on the tip of Davey’s nose.

“Jack!”

“One handprint,” Jack insisted. “Every time you say no, you get another dot of paint.” He made another fingerprint on Davey’s cheek, then another.

“Fine!” Davey burst out. “Fine. I’ll do it.”

“Now you’re talkin’!” Jack gestured grandly to the plates of paint he had set out. Davey shot a sly glance behind him to take his aim before he settled his hand into the orange paint. Instead of putting it on the paper, though, he whipped around and rubbed as much of it as he could all over Jack’s face.

Jack spluttered, mouth hanging open as Davey busted up laughing. 

In the moment of shock, he went back for more orange and slopped some of it onto Jack’s paint shirt. “If you want to get paint on my face, you better be prepared to pay for it.”

“Oh, you wanna talk about paying for it?” Jack lunged for the bottle of red paint and emptied some into his hand, wicked grin on his face. “I hope you don’t care about that shirt.”

Davey yelped, narrowly dodging an attack and buying himself time to snatch up a brush as a weapon. It didn’t end up mattering, since Jack launched toward him and coated him in red paint.

Jack was laughing, but his amusement was cut short by Davey flicking a handful of yellow paint at him. 

“Truce?” Davey offered through breathless laughter, holding out his arms.

“Hell no!” Jack ran at him; Davey intercepted. They tussled standing up, simultaneously attempting to get the upper hand and also coat each other in as much paint as possible. Jack was stronger but Davey had grown up wrestling with his siblings and was well-versed in escape tactics. They were both laughing. Davey couldn’t remember the last time he’d laughed so much, the last time he’d done anything like this without even thinking about the mess that would result. It was a definite relief from essays.

Jack tripped at one point and sent them both sprawling on the floor. They both gasped when they hit the tile, but then it became a race to get back up. Davey scrunched up his face with the effort of trying to pry Jack’s grip away so that he could reach more paint.

“Admit defeat,” Jack grunted, still holding him back.

Davey decided to employ an ancient trick; he went limp underneath him, letting his eyes fall shut and stopping his struggle. It was enough to catch Jack slightly off-guard--just enough for Davey to surge up and get back control. He paused for a moment just to enjoy how ridiculous this was—here they were, two grown-ass men engaged in a paint war. 

Really, he didn’t have it in him to be embarrassed.

“Cheater!” Jack gasped, scandalized.

“You admit defeat,” Davey said breathlessly, fumbling on the tabletop for the plate of paint and pouring it all over Jack’s chest. He spluttered and groaned through reluctant laughter.

“Never.”

Davey reached for more paint.

“Okay, okay! I surrender.”

“Jesus Christ, we made a mess,” Davey panted.

They’d slopped paint over a lot of the tile--not to mention themselves. Jack looked like a whole new kind of masterpiece, covered in drying shades of color. When he looked at Davey, there was a thrill in his dark eyes, like fireworks going off against a night sky. “But it was a fun mess,” he said.

“Good use of the new paint?” Davey said. “We just acted like five-year-olds, I hope you realize that. God. I am grown.”

Jack scoffed a tiny bit. “You needed it, Mr Serious Teacher. I saw you getting grey hairs grading those papers.” Then he went quiet, studying Davey for a few moments. “You know, I think I would like to actually paint on you sometime. It suits you.”

Davey rolled his eyes, but he couldn’t wipe away the smile. He set the now-empty paint plate back on the table. “Can I ask you something kind of personal?”

“Fire away.” Jack peeled off his wrecked shirt. Even underneath it, his chest was paint-stained.

“Why don’t you try to pursue art?” Davey asked. “I mean, clearly you love it. Clearly it makes you happy. I get it if it’s not enough to live off of, at first, but you’re not even trying to study it or sell it on the side--”

Jack’s face instantly grew more serious. He avoided Davey’s eye. “I just really don’t have time. I’d love to try and take it further, but… Well, then I gotta find somebody to watch Luna in addition to having somebody watch her every day. And I’m tired. All the time I’m tired. I work every damn day of the week, and I don’t wanna gripe about it but the few hours of free time a week I have as it is are ones I gotta spend sleeping or feeding Luna. There’s just… there’s no room in my life for it.”

Davey frowned. That was sad. It was really sad, the idea of not having room in your life for something you loved.

Jack tried for a laugh. “I mean, it’s not like I feel deprived or somethin’--”

“No. No, I didn’t mean it like that. I was just curious.”

“I mean, it’s not just that,” Jack admitted. “It hurts. A lot. Art reminds me of stuff, of past stuff. Everythin’ I paint is really personal and… I don’t know if I could stand having somebody tell me there’s a right and wrong way to feel, you know?”

“That makes sense.”

“We really should wipe the floor.” Jack smiled at Davey, goofiness bouncing right back. “You know, that paint’s a good look for you.”

“I think you just like things that are messes,” Davey retorted.

Jack’s smile faded, just a tad. “Yeah,” he said. “I do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> !!! visit on tumblr, leave a comment (i BEG u, i thrive on comments). adios!! <3


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey hey hey! long time no see. here'sss an update. davey makes an unexpected decision, smalls reappears, and there's peach juice. enjoy

_"It is a great misfortune to be alone, my friends; and it must be believed that solitude can quickly destroy reason."_ \--Jules Verne, _The Mysterious Island_

-

Jack and Davey were standing by the sink, double-teaming the sink full of dishes. The dishwasher was broken (after Jack had gotten frustrated with not being able to shut it and kicked it) so they had to do them by hand until the landlord could send somebody to fix it. Davey washed, Jack dried, Luna sat on the counter with a pacifier and a plastic ring of keys.

They did this often, existed in rhythm--wove around each other doing domestic tasks. Davey had grown used to the push and pull of it, and he certainly didn’t mind coming home to find certain chores already done.

Jack whistled what sounded suspiciously like the Andy Griffith theme song. Davey’s mind was occupied with Smalls.

She’d shown up to school with a black eye that morning. Davey had a good guess as to where it had come from--he just didn’t want to believe it. When he’d asked her where it’d come from, she said she’d tripped. He didn’t buy it.

He’d been watching her in his class for the past couple weeks, keeping a good eye on her and trying to determine a good time--and way--to talk to her. He was worried. He’d begun to notice that she only had a few shirts and pairs of pants that she alternated between wearing, some bleach stained and one with a hole in the side. 

He wasn’t sure what to do. He didn’t just want to call CPS on her parents, which was his hypothesis as to the bruises and lack of supplies, because there was the off chance it really wasn’t them. Davey had made up his mind that he had to somehow get her to open up to him, though. Even if she wasn’t living in abusive situation, there clearly was something wrong. 

But he didn’t want to stick his nose into her business if it wasn’t needed.

But then again, if it _was_ needed--

“Whoa!”

Davey was yanked out of his head by Jack leaning _very_ close to him, hands slipping on a plate that Davey had nearly dropped while passing to him. Davey gripped onto it again, as did Jack; assuming that the other was going to hold it, they both let go and then shrieked when it almost fell again.

Jack managed to catch it, at the expense of bumping his head into Davey’s chest. “Sorry,” he said when he straightened again, flushed.

“Um, you’re fine,” Davey said. Jack was still pretty much leaning over him, one of his legs stationed behind both of Davey’s. He slid back up to a normal position at a pace that seemed painstaking to Davey most likely because of how hot his face was.

Then Jack grinned. “Careful,” he said, and started to dry it.

He resumed whistling.

Davey blew out a long breath.

“So,” Jack said as he was drying the last cup. “I think I might’ve found a place to go. You know, when the month is up.”

Davey raised his eyebrows, switched off the sink. “Oh? Where is it?”

“It’s, uh, it’s downtown. But then so was my last place. As long as it’s got running water and a roof, who cares, right?” He chuckled a little. Davey heard the tightness of it, though--downtown wasn’t nice. “And I think it’s smaller, too, so hopefully bills won’t be as killer.”

“Does that mean you’ll be able to quit doing the overnights?”

“No, probably not. It ain’t that much smaller.” Jack laughed, letting it fall into a sigh. “But it’s something.”

That should have been good news. There was only a week until the month would be up, until Jack had to be out. Still, Davey felt a twinge in his heart. He couldn’t help it--he had acquired a soft spot for Jack and Luna over the past three weeks, and even if they were strangers he’d probably take pity on them. But they weren’t strangers, not anymore. He’d seen Jack after overnights, now. Curled up on his mattress in his work clothes to get even a few hours of sleep, only to ship off to the diner and work all day. The sight never failed to tug at some weird caretaker complex he had inside him.

“That’s unfair,” he settled on saying.

“Well… What can I do, huh?” Jack checked his watch and grimaced. “And it’s Wednesday, huh? Speaking of overnights, I should start getting ready for mine.” He dried his hands off. “You good to watch Lune tonight?”

“Oh, no, I was actually thinking of taking her with me to commit arson.” Three weeks had made him familiar with the concept of being Luna’s overnight keeper a few times a week. He was fine with it. She’d only woken up and cried a couple of times over all the nights he’d kept an eye on her thus far. (And there had been no more escapes to the neighbors’. Spot was likely pleased.)

Jack was silent, and when Davey glanced up at him, his eyes were stricken wide. He smiled. “Jack,” he said, tipping his head down. “I’m kidding. We’ll be fine.”

Jack blew out a breath. “Sorry. Just, I… worry.”

“I know you do.”

Jack headed over to Luna and scooped her up off the counter. “Hello, _cariña_ ,” he crooned, ruffling up her hair. She babbled back at him, some variation of “papi” somewhere in the mix before she stuck her index and middle fingers in her mouth. “I know, I know all about it. Let’s go put you down for bed, hmm?”

Davey watched him carry her down the hall. He looked down at his shirt; there was a wet spot where Jack had splashed some water on it. Without Davey even realizing it, Jack had left a mark on him.

-

Davey entered the school library early the next morning and was about to approach Buttons, as usual, but paused when he saw that one of the tables was occupied. The black jacket and choppy hair were unmistakable. “Smalls,” he said.

She lifted her head--her black eye was beginning to heal, but still noticeably dark. “Hi, Mr Jacobs,” she answered.

He headed closer, cautiously. Buttons was watching him with interest. “What’re you doin’ here so early?”

She avoided his eye. “My dad had to work early, so he dropped me off.”

“I see.” That had the intonations of a lie, but he wasn’t going to push it. He blinked at what she was working on. She was leaning over a piece of notebook paper; it was covered in sketchy dragons, roaring and crouching and staring directly out of the blue lines with fiery eyes.

“Those are beautiful,” he said. “Really, they are.”

She smiled a little bit--only a little bit, but it was there. She seemed slightly more willing to talk than usual. “Thanks.”

Not wanting to push too hard and scare her off, he just smiled at her before he headed over to Buttons at the desk. “When did she get here?” he asked, keeping his voice low so Smalls couldn’t hear.

“She was sitting outside the school when I got here, so I let her in.” Buttons adjusted a pin in her hijab, shot a glance at Smalls, and then said softly, “She seemed out of breath, like she’d been running. I don’t think her dad brought her here.”

“I don’t either,” Davey murmured.

Buttons let out a sigh and hummed. “Any ideas on what to do about it? At first I thought you might be paranoid but I’m worried, too. Where’d she get the shiner?”

“Said it was an accident.”

Buttons shook her head. “Black eyes don’t happen by accident.”

“No, they don’t.” Davey ran a hand through his hair. Not like he’d really know--he’s never fought anybody in his life. “I don’t know. I don’t know what to do. I mean, what if things are fine? I don’t want to… you know, call CPS if it would just start something unnecessary.”

The librarian sighed. “I’d say you should just try to get her to open up to you. You seem to be on the right track--I was making small talk earlier and she said your class is her favorite.”

“Aww. Really?”

She nodded, then furrowed her brow. “I told her if she ever needs someplace to come, my doors are always open.”

Davey touched her hand gratefully, then said at a normal volume, “Do you happen to have any food?”

-

He marched into the choir room during the lunch period with confusion and purpose.

“Rough day?” Medda asked, raising her eyebrows.

“I have a myriad of issues right now.”

She pursed her lips. He went into the back room, dug a small can of peach juice out of she and Crutchie’s mini fridge, and emerged once more, chugging it. Medda appraised him with a furrowed brow. “You hate that peach juice,” she said.

“I know,” Davey groaned, setting down the empty can and bracing his hands on her desk. He swallowed hard against the aftertaste. “I really fucking hate that peach juice.”

“Honey. _What_ is wrong?”

“My roommate has to leave because I told him to leave but now I don’t want him to leave, I can’t get through to Smalls and I think there’s something seriously wrong, and I still have three stacks of vocab sheets from last week to grade. And I’m broke, because I became a teacher. Why did I become a teacher? Why did my family let me do this? All I have to say for myself is intimate knowledge of The Great Gatsby and a weird fucking attachment to a man in my house who lied about having a daughter. Because thanks to my job I can’t resist taking care of every person I meet.” He looked up at Medda. “I want a redo.”

Medda laughed, albeit a little freaked out. “There are no redos.”

Davey shook his head. “I’ll move to Sweden. I’ll change my name.”

“What will your Swedish name be?”

“Casimir.”

“That’s Polish, but live your dreams.”

Davey growled. “I… I thought that him moving out was what I wanted. It was my compromise. I thought I couldn’t live with somebody who has a baby. But the new place he has isn’t nice. Not at all nice. And he has to work two jobs to afford a place that isn’t nice, and the baby, she’ll--”

Medda put a comforting hand on his shoulder. “Dear, just talk to him.”

He whined. “But I don’t wanna.”

Crutchie entered, three packs of powdered donuts from the school cafeteria shoved into his pockets. “What are we talking about?”

Medda sent her student-teacher a smile. “David has a myriad of problems, as we’re calling it.”

Crutchie gasped around a donut he’d just stuffed into his mouth, spewing white powder. “You slept with your roommate. I knew it. I knew you wouldn’t be able to r--”

“No! I did not sleep with him!”

Suddenly Crutchie looked bored with this conversation. “So then what?” he asked, sitting on the piano bench and setting down his crutches.

“He has to leave, but I don’t want him to.”

Crutchie slid Davey a pack of donuts, sensing that he needed them. “So you can fuck him.”

“No!”

Medda sighed. “That’s a problem easily solved, Dave. If you want him to stay, tell him to stay. I’m sure he won’t complain. And besides, if you’re going to extend the situation, I would advise you against living with somebody you can’t talk to about things like this.”

“It isn’t that I can’t talk to him, it’s that… I don’t know how.” Davey bit his lip. “He’s... very sweet. And I’m just not sure what to do with all that.”

Crutchie picked up his phone. “Oh, I just got a text. It says ‘sleep with him.’”

“Not gonna happen, Crutchie,” Davey said.

“I’m being serious about it for once!” Crutchie insisted. “It could help you sort through your feelings.”

“He’s straight.” Davey had next to no doubt about that. If Jack were at all attracted to guys, he’d have been far more fazed by various awkward stares and moments of close proximity he and Davey had shared. He took everything in his usual stride, like it meant nothing at all. And maybe Davey was the one making it mean something, but, yeah. Straight.

“So’s--”

“If you make that spaghetti joke I will kill you where you sit.” 

Crutchie finally gave in. “Alright, fine. But Medda’s right. Communication is key.”

They were right. Davey knew they were right. But he meant what he said about being thrown off by Jack’s warmth. He’d have to get over it, he decided, because there was no way he was going to damn Jack to the life he seemed so resigned to. Working yourself to death just to maintain dismal conditions and therefore never being able to chase your passions? No. If Davey could rescue everybody who lived that life, he would, but he could only do this. So he would.

-

It wasn’t until Friday that Davey got the courage. He got home at the end of the day and found Jack in his room, playing with Luna on the floor.

“Hello,” Davey said. Jack looked up from teaching her about shapes with use of one of her toys. A bowl of animal crackers sat on the floor beside them, seemingly as an award system.

“Hey,” Jack replied, looking a bit confused by the visit. Davey waved at Luna; she broke into a smile and waved back.

Davey pocketed his hands nervously. “I, uh, I wanted to talk to you about something.”

“Er, sure.” Jack gestured grandly at the carpet. “Join the meeting. We got animal crackers.”

Davey cleared aside a paintbrush and a pacifier before he took a seat on the floor beside them. He looked up, and he could tell that despite the outward calm he was demonstrating, Jack was anxious. The words “I want to talk to you” could do that to a person. “Listen, uh…” He just had to spit it out. “Would you want to stay here? Longer?”

Jack might’ve not known what to expect, but it obviously wasn’t that. His eyes widened.

“I mean, of course, if you want to go, that’s fine,” Davey amended quickly. “I just… well, I’m used to you guys, and I don’t want you to have to struggle if you don’t have to. If you got a place to stay where you can do less work, why not, right? And, you’ve got a place. With… me.”

Jack bit his lip. “Oh. Dave, I’m… flattered, but--well, you don’t gotta keep me here for charity.”

“It’s not charity,” Davey answered. “You help with the rent. And the only reason I wanted you to leave to begin with was Luna, but I’m used to her now. It’s not forever, but just until you’re really on your feet.” He tried for a smile. “And I kind of really don’t want to live alone again.”

He hoped Jack heard what he was really saying there--that he’d grown so used to his company, to having his music blasting through the apartment and finding paint everywhere and coming home to Dora playing on the television.

“So, I’m _your_ charity case. If you want to stay, that is--you don’t have to.”

Jack let out a shocked laugh. “I mean… of course. Of course I want to.” He put a hand on his mouth, eyes scrunching around the edges with a smile for the ages. “Oh my God. Of course,” he repeated.

Davey grinned.

“I’ll be able to quit the overnights,” Jack said. He looked like he might cry. “I can’t remember the last time I didn’t have to work nights.” And then words failed. He just leaned down and hugged Luna, who was sitting in his lap. He hugged her so tight Davey could almost feel it. “You hear it, Lune? We get to stay here,” he whispered, covering her face in kisses. He glanced back up at Davey, and yep, he was crying a little bit--with an embarrassed chuckle, he wiped the tears. “Thank you,” he said.

“Of course,” Davey answered, earnestly.

All of a sudden Jack set Luna aside and lunged for him, embracing him with a ferocity that set Davey ablaze from the inside out. “Thank you, thank you, thank you. I mean it.”

Davey was startled, but he squeezed him back. He couldn’t help but like it, the warmth and weight of Jack against him and the way his hair felt against Davey’s neck. He still smelled like the diner, like cinnamon and apple pie and just as soon as he’d come, he was gone.

“I gotta--” Jack laughed and wiped more tears and fumbled for his phone. “I gotta call that landlord and tell him.” He stood up, his dark eyes so full of happiness Davey almost felt attacked by it. He watched Jack dial the number, and he’d been afraid he’d regret this decision but he just couldn’t. Not at all.

-

He started a groupchat with his siblings, because now he had a few new issues.

Davey: Friends. How do I tell Mama that I’m living with a guy who has a baby???  
Les: ummm why do u have to? isnt he leaving in like a week  
Davey: I sort of told him he can stay?  
Sarah: DAVE.  
Les: WHY.  
Davey: I swear this isn’t me being a pushover!!! I’d feel so bad if I kicked him out, he has no money and he works so much and he and his poor baby need someplace to stay  
Sarah: so you aren’t being a pushover, you’re just giving into your weird teacher white knight complex  
Davey: Yeah!  
Sarah: that’s….. almost worse  
Davey: :-(  
Les: so u don’t mind living w a baby? fr?  
Davey: Nah. I’ve gotten used to it  
Les: …..he’s hot isn’t he  
Sarah: Les.  
Sarah: but also like, pics or it didn’t happen

With reluctance, Davey sent them a creepshot he’d taken of Jack while painting to send to Buttons a while ago.

Les: OH WOW  
Les: yeah… u feel bad for him…. yea…… okay…..

-

“Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit.”

Jack was pacing in circles around the living room, muttering under his breath when Davey emerged on Sunday morning. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

Jack tangled a hand in his hair. “The friend who usually watches Luna while I’m working can’t do it on weekends anymore. Shit,” he breathed again, tossing his phone on the couch, and Davey was honestly so surprised to hear him say real swear words that it took a moment for the issue to kick in.

“I can watch her,” he heard himself saying.

Jack’s gaze whipped over to him; he slowly removed his hand from his hair. “What?”

Davey shrugged a little bit. “I don’t work on weekends. I can look after her until your shift is done. Especially now that I won’t have to anymore on your overnights.”

“You mean it?” Jack asked, and then he shook his head. “No, I can’t ask you to do that. I can’t. You’re already letting me--”

“Well then good thing you didn’t ask me,” Davey replied, giving him the no-nonsense teacher look that never failed to shut him up. “I told you I would. Very different. I don’t mind, Jack, really.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive. It’s no big deal. We’ll grade essays together. Now don’t you have a shift to get ready for?”

Jack hurried toward the hall and gave Davey another quick hug. “Sorry,” he said, at Davey’s surprised expression. “I just--I gotta hug you. Least I can do, right?”

And then he was off down the hallway, leaving Davey in the living room with a new babysitting job and warmth still clinging to him in all the strangest places.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope ya liked that!!! say hello on tumblr, rb the post, please please please comment (even if i forget to reply, i see and love every single one!!!!) gbye


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HIIIII. sorry, it's been a couple weeks! i started school last week and i've been super occupied with that. so here's a warning about it: i have a really rigorous schedule this year, so updates might come kinda slow! i'm still gonna try and shoot for around once a week, since i have this story outlined pretty thoroughly, but just bear with me if it takes more time. good? good.  
> enjoy this! it's kinda short and sweet, just barely 3000 words, and a bit more of a serious one. have fun

Davey was rather afraid to be left alone with a baby.

He had to admit it.

Even though he’d volunteered himself to watch Luna in place of her usual caretaker on weekends, he started to realize that he had no clue how to babysit. So here he was, about to watch Luna all Sunday, clueless. Jack, running late as usual, was shouting instructions at him from behind the closed bathroom door.

“Um, feed her lunch around noon,” he called above the running of the sink. “She’s already had her breakfast. I’ll be back at five, so I can handle her dinner.”

“Okay.”

“And she goes down for a nap around three. Sometimes earlier.”

“Okay.”

Jack busted open the door. He was wearing nothing but a towel that was hanging a bit too low for Davey’s comfort. (Comfort meaning his ability to not stare stupidly.) He focused his eyes, hard, on Jack’s face. The man was still talking, something about Luna, but all Davey was thinking was _do not look down do NOT look down oh god do not look down._ “Jesus Christ, I gotta run,” Jack said when Davey came back to reality, running a hand through his wet hair and brushing past Davey, whose face was ablaze. “Uniform, uniform. Where’d I--”

“Washed it last night,” Davey said, wincing when his voice cracked.

Jack pointed in the direction of the pantry, spun around, then ran over to it. 

He reemerged a moment later, pants pulled up miraculously quickly, still wrestling his shirt over his head. Luna watched him from her high chair, brown eyes big and lips parted. 

He bustled back over to her, toweling his wet hair, and pressed a few wet kisses to her face. “Okay, Lune. Papi’s gotta go. You be good for Dave today? He’ll take good care of you. I’ll be back soon.” Jack glanced to Davey, eyes apprehensive. “You’re sure you’re okay with doing this?”

“Of course.”

It wasn’t like he could back out now, anyway.

“Okay. Uhm, call me if you need anything. You have my number. Obviously. Yeah. Ha. Okay. I’m late.” Jack squeezed Davey’s shoulder, curved his lips into a ragged smile, then darted out the door.

As soon as he heard the door click shut, Davey turned to face Luna. She was just gazing at him, eyes still big and curious. Davey felt his heart skip a beat out of panic. He was looking at an entire child that he was responsible for for the rest of the day. A helpless life form, fully dependent on his clueless ass to keep her alive. “Okay,” he declared, clapping his hands together. “Let’s come to an understanding here, yes? You won’t cry or throw things at me, and I won’t let you stick any forks in any sockets. Sound fun?”

She just continued blinking at him. “I don’t know why I’m talking to you like I would talk to a class of eighth graders,” Davey said. 

Davey set her on the couch, gave her a sippy cup of juice and a couple toys, turned on Dora, and settled down beside her to grade some essays. She kept focused on the cartoon and her rattling snake for a good while, but eventually became interested in what Davey was doing.

“Essays,” Davey sighed, when she reached out a little clumsy hand and tried to grab for the papers. “No, not for you.”

He pulled her into his lap. “See this?” he asked, pointing to where he’d circled a spelling mistake--somehow this precious fourteen-year-old had managed to spell it as “nesesscery.” Luna placed her hand on top of Davey’s finger. “I am never going to let your spelling be this bad,” Davey informed her. “Mark my words.”

She stayed in his lap as he went back to grading, flipping through a new one. He scoffed. “Good Lord, Luna, listen to this. ‘The central theme of Animal Farm is that people in power are always evil’? Give me a break.”

Luna babbled in agreement.

So the day passed smoothly until noon. It wasn’t until he tried to feed her at lunchtime that Luna started to cry.

She was having an attitude Davey had seen her occasionally use with Jack--knocking things off her plate and refusing to eat her food. “Luna,” he groaned, when she tossed yet another carrot on the floor. “Why do you have to make my life hard?”

“Papi?” she said, looking at Davey expectantly.

“He’s not going to be back until later.”

She said it again, more fiercely this time, demanding Jack’s presence. “Papi?”

“Not right now,” Davey answered, ruffling her hair gently.

She burst into tears.

“Oh, Christ,” Davey grumbled. He picked her up out of the high chair, though, and held her, wincing at the volume of her screams. “Christ,” he repeated under his breath, starting to bounce her gently in his arms and say her name, trying to calm her down.

She kept right on sobbing, occasionally whimpering for Jack. After about ten minutes of having his ear screamed off Davey set her on the couch. “Alright, I can no longer hear. Luna,” he said into the din. Of course, she didn’t even hear him.

Davey sat on the couch beside her with a thick sigh. Jekyll watched from the counter, ears flat against his head at the noise.

He pulled the toddler into his lap, patting her back. “Come on, Luna, you’re okay,” he hushed, and he even tried humming a few tunes to her but she just continued to soak his t-shirt.

He tried everything--pacing in circles around the house holding her, offering her toys. Eventually he carried her into Jack’s room, praying he could just get her to cry herself out and go down for a nap.

He plopped her down on Jack’s mattress. “Okay,” he sighed. He turned around and noticed the closet door was ajar--momentarily tuning out Luna’s cries, he moved toward it curiously. There was far more art than there had been the first time Davey snooped, most likely thanks to the new paints Jack now had.

One painting stuck out. It was so simple, just a painting of the moon on a black canvas, but something about it caught Davey’s eye.

The moon in the painting was full and bright, sending out a glow all the way around it. The odd thing, though, was that there were no stars.

Davey gently touched the moon with his thumb, somehow wishing he could tell it he was sorry.

There were lots of moon sketches. Moon paintings, moon sketches, a little doodle of all the phases of the moon. Luna, Davey thought. Latin. That’s Latin for moon. 

Looking at these paintings, he couldn’t help wondering if Jack had done that on purpose.

There were also drawings upon drawings of that same red-haired girl Davey had seen long ago. She was everywhere--even in the sketches that didn’t full-on show her, Davey could almost sense her presence, like she beamed out of everything Jack’s hands made. He’d doodled her with pencils in hand, running down a sidewalk, asleep with her cheek pressed into a pillowcase.

And then there was one.

There was a painting of her, back turned, hair spilling over her back, and all around her in an angry cloud of black was written one word again and again: _WHY?_

Davey set it down, slid the closet door shut, and headed back to Luna. 

Her sobbing had bubbled down to little hiccups, to his relief. Rather than lift her into the crib, for fear she’d start up again, he just laid down on the mattress beside her. Almost absentmindedly he lifted her onto his chest. She sniffled; he placed a hand on her small back, feeling her stuttery breaths, and stared at the ceiling.

“Sometimes,” he said to her, “the world feels too big for my liking.”

-

Davey honestly didn’t realize he’d fallen asleep. Not until he felt a hand gently shaking his shoulder. He opened bleary eyes, face furrowed in confusion.

He was still in Jack’s room, on the mattress. The shadows had grown long and blue, signifying that evening had come. Jack was standing above him.

“Morning,” Jack whispered. He was still in his diner uniform. “You guys having a good nap?”

Davey raised his eyebrows. Luna was still on his chest, sound asleep.

“Oh, God,” Davey said. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to--”

“Shhh.” Jack’s eyes scrunched at the edges with a smile. “You’re good. Trust me. Want me to take her?” He leaned down and scooped Luna up into his arms. Davey sat, then stood, hurriedly.

Jack smiled, patting Luna’s back. “You guys look cute together,” he said. “She behave okay?”

Davey ran a hand through his hair, mind running the word _cute_ on repeat.

“Dave…?” Jack asked, smiling. “You there?”

“Oh. Oh, yeah, she did fine,” Davey said.

-

Davey stopped by the nearest coffee shop--coincidentally, the one where he’d first met Jack--on the way home from work, in need of some caffeine to get through grading. He joined the line, leaning his weight on one leg and idly looking around at the people. Davey always viewed a random selection of people that way, as characters. It probably came from being a literature fanatic.

He surveyed them all, and his eyes stopped on one figure. One small figure. One in a jacket he knew very well.

“Smalls?” Davey said, surprised.

She lifted her head and looked at him, eyes wide. “Mr Jacobs?”

“Yeah, hey,” Davey said, abandoning the line and making his way over to the corner she had tucked herself into. “What are you up to? Here with your parents?”

“Oh, no,” she said, avoiding his gaze like always. “Just walked here. My house is close.”

Davey made a sympathetic “ahh” sound, trying to ignore the questions building up in his mind. He’d learned that questioning her was the exact way to send her running. “Needed some fresh air, huh?”

She nodded, and then her stomach audibly growled--she turned red. “Sorry.”

He glanced toward the counter. “Uh, do you want anything? I could grab a snack for you, if you’re hungry.”

Smalls blinked, shaking some hair away from her face. He watched her gearing up to refuse--and then he watched her stop. “Yeah,” she said. “I am hungry, actually.”

“No problem. Muffin sound good?”

“Yeah.”

“What kind?”

“Blueberry?”

“Okay. I’ll be right back, then. You okay if I put my stuff here?” he asked, and she nodded, so he lowered his bag down and then rejoined the line. It took a few minutes before he headed back over to her, latte and muffin in hand. She thanked him and tore into it very quickly, taking a massive bite.

Davey took an apprehensive sip of coffee, watching her without looking like he was.

“So how’s the school year been for you so far?” he asked, when she had eaten half of her muffin at a stunning speed.

She shrugged. “It’s been okay.”

“Do you like your classes?” he said.

“Guess so.” Her grade in Davey’s class was still hanging dangerously close to an F. He’d done his best to cut her some slack, but there was only so much he could do. Like Medda always said--at some point, he couldn’t put in effort for a student refused to put it in.

Davey sighed. “It’s the last time I’ll get on your case about it, I promise, but. Are you sure there’s nothing you want help with to bring your grade up? I’m willing to put the time in, Smalls, if you are.”

She slipped another bit of muffin into her mouth to avoid answering for a moment. Then she shrugged again.

“Okay,” Davey said, resigned. “But my door’s always open. Lunch time, before school, after school, you name it. I get there early, if you still do.”

Smalls finished her food slowly and silently, eyes thoughtful.

She looked less opposed to the idea of meeting up, though.

“I should get home,” she said finally when she’d thrown away her trash.

“Alright,” Davey said. “And--hey, off the record, is everything okay?”

Smalls looked faintly alarmed. “Yeah,” she said, voice a bit squeaky, a bit too perky. “Yeah, everything’s fine. I’m fine. Thank you for the food, Mr Jacobs, really.”

“It was no problem.”

She nodded a little bit.

“My door is always open,” he said again, knowing she’d hear the meaning underneath it. He was worried about her--no point trying to hide it anymore. What would a kid be doing alone in a coffee shop at five pm on a school night? It didn’t make sense. None of it made sense.

“I know it is. And thank you for that.” She hesitated. “But I don’t need any help. I promise I don’t.”

And then she was gone.

-

The porch light was on.

Davey moved into the entryway and saw a yellow glow coming from the front door he’d never seen before. At first he assumed Jack had left it on accidentally or something--then he saw him. He was standing out there, shirtless in old flannel pajama pants, smoke caught in a haze in the glow around him.

Davey wasn’t sure why, but he found himself opening the door.

Jack jolted when he saw Davey poke his head out. He lowered the hand holding his cigarette down to his side, face flushing red, evidently embarrassed. “Hey,” he said. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Davey said quickly. Jack had put that in his application, after all--smokes, only outside. He stepped out onto the porch with him. The night was chilly, and the smell of cigarettes clung to it. Davey crossed his arms across his chest. He hated the stink of cigarettes--always had. But he stayed.

“I’d offer ya one, but I’m out,” Jack admitted a bit awkwardly.

“Oh, it’s fine. I don’t smoke,” Davey replied. It grossed him out. “My mama would kill me.”

That really made Jack laugh.

“It’s good that you don’t,” he added, taking another drag and then studying it with a frustrated look on his face. “I started when I was younger. Young and stupid. It’s a nasty habit, but... impossible to quit. I’ve kinda had bigger worries than getting off it.”

Davey sent him a sympathetic look. 

“Well. That implies I’m not still young and stupid.” Jack chuckled. “But. If I could go back in time, I woulda never picked one up.”

“How often do you do it?” Davey asked. Jack sent him a nervous glance, and he backtracked. “I mean, I’m not judging. I’ve just never seen you do it before.”

Jack shrugged, blowing out a bit more smoke and rocking back and forth on his feet. “I try not to do it very often. At night, usually, so I can shower before I’m around Luna again. She’s the reason I might try‘n quit, with no more overnights.” He bit his lip. “I wanna quit for her. It’s just hard. Calms me down, you know.”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah.”

They were quiet again.

Jack watched the stars--Davey watched Jack.

The moon shone off of his skin, outlining his chest and shoulder blades and cheeks with silver. Smoke billowed off what was left of his cigarette. He looked like he belonged in the space he took up, like the night was a painting and he was its main subject. Davey couldn’t tell what he was thinking.

“What made you decide to name her Luna?” he found himself asking.

All of a sudden, Jack was smiling. “Honestly, it was my mother’s name. I forgot it even meant the moon till Lune’s mom told me.”

“Latin,” Davey agreed, quietly. He was surprised to hear Jack bring up Luna’s mother--he didn’t intend to push it.

Jack nodded. “And Spanish,” he said. “We couldn’t decide on a name, so I just spat that one out. Said it would mean something to me if we named her after my ma.” He dropped his cigarette into the ashtray handy. “Katie loved it. She always loved that kinda stuff. The moon, the stars…” He waved a noncommittal hand toward the heavens.

 _Katie,_ Davey thought.

“Yeah,” Jack sighed. He hummed out a small laugh, not looking at Davey. “I think it fits. She lights up my dark ass world.”

Davey thought back to the paintings he’d seen on Sunday--especially the one of the moon, shining unabashedly in the sky but also looking so lonely. And he looked at Jack, and thought that maybe he didn’t love painting the moon because he was a dreamer, or romantic, or because he looked at the world through hopeful eyes. Maybe he just really, really needed some light.

“You guys have lit up mine,” Davey said.

Jack glanced at him with those big brown eyes and that ruffled hair, and his smile looked like a fault line. “I’m glad,” he said.

“Can I ask you a personal question?” Davey asked.

“Are there any other kind?” 

“How did you meet Luna’s mother?”

Jack stiffened, and Davey prepared to be slapped or told to fuck off or both but then the man bit his lip thoughtfully. “Her dad owned this huge office building. This big company. Real rich businessman. And I was a janitor in the building, and she came by one day to drop something off for him, and we ended up talking.”

Davey smiled. “Is she a redhead?” he asked.

Jack sent him a glance and a little wry smile. “You’ve seen my paintings.” Then he furrowed his brow. “But, yeah. She was.”

Davey noticed the past tense. He didn’t comment on it.

“Did you love her?” he asked, instead.

“As much as she loved the moon,” Jack replied softly, looking at it again. Davey looked with him, wondering if Jack was seeing something he didn’t.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm really tired. u know what i'm gonna say here. tumblr, leave me a comment pllllls, GOODNIGHT!


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HI.  
> so, as you know, school has been kicking my ass. i'll tell you right now that this chapter is like really terrible, and that's honestly all you need to know going into it but i'll explain why too. i drank too much dumb fuck juice and planned out this story for chapters 8 and after of this story after i wrote chapter 6. why did i assume chapter 7 already existed? i literally do not fuckin know. so i had nothing to put here, and school is kind of kicking me in the ass, and i was like im just going to do a gay bad filler chapter that barely hits 3000 words! so take it! please! im so tired!

_“What was the manner of my coming here?  
Impossible to say, for when I’d left  
the one true way, my mind was drunk with sleep.”_   
-Dante, _Inferno_

-

The week was wild from the fucking start.

On Monday morning, Davey and Jack woke up to a stunningly cold apartment. “That’s how the cold is here,” Jack said, balancing Luna on his hip as he watched Davey fiddling desperately with the ornery thermostat. “Hits you right over the head one night.”

Davey grimaced, shifting in the mismatched socks he had hastily pulled on.

Then he couldn’t find a jacket to wear. Normally he was extremely organized, but all of his cold-weather clothes still happened to be jammed in cardboard boxes and pushed way too far back in their singular storage closet for him to even consider digging them out so early in the day. He paced around the hall, muttering to himself, sure that there had to be _one_ warm article of clothing he’d taken out.

Jack noticed. “What’s wrong?” he called from the bathroom.

“Can’t find a jacket,” Davey sighed. 

Jack poked his head out of the bathroom. Half of his chin was covered in a layer of shaving cream; Luna sat on the bathroom counter in front of him. “Do you want one of mine?” he offered.

Davey stopped his pacing. “Really?”

Jack laughed. “Uh, yeah, really. It’s just a jacket. Lemme finish here and I’ll grab you one.”

As promised, he finished up shaving rapidly and then waded into the mess of his bedroom to produce a large grey hoodie. It was from some charity event, according to the cheaply-printed logo on the front, and Davey could guess Jack had snagged it from a Goodwill.

Jack noticed the look on Davey’s face. “It’s not the peak’a fashion. But it’ll keep you warm.” Then he had smiled. “Actually, it looks nice on you. Better than on me.”

Davey had driven to school with those words clutched tightly to his chest.

It did keep him warm. That was sort of the problem. He’d seen Jack wear it before, and it fit Davey differently--baggy in places that Jack’s stronger arms usually filled it out more. It was easy to just curl up into it and get lost in the miles of grey fabric, disappear if only for a second. Davey liked it at first, trying to step back and appreciate it for its utilitarian purpose; it blocked out the cold.

But then he sat down at his desk, and he realized that the hoodie smelled like Jack.

It was like being surrounded in the smell that the man always carried around with him. That smell of cheap Old Spice body wash and the cinnamon from the diner he worked and just a tiny bit of cigarette smoke, just a hint.

This wasn’t a problem. It shouldn’t have been a problem.

The thing was, Davey really liked it.

The smell, he found it soothing in a way that definitely set off alarms in his brain. It was always on Jack, and it clung to his room, and it clung to Luna, and it had never affected Davey much before. But now, sitting in this goddamned hoodie in his goddamned middle school English classroom at seven in the goddamned morning, it was making him dizzy.

Sometimes he felt that Jack had been on his way to a dance floor when he stumbled into Davey’s life by mistake. That he’d grabbed Davey and just started spinning and spinning and spinning him, not knowing that Davey wasn’t a dancer, not knowing that he didn’t know how to stop his knees from wobbling as Jack flounced away skillfully. 

Maybe he was still spinning. Maybe he hadn’t stopped after Jack had let go.

He shook his head. _It’s been too long,_ he told himself. _You’re too romantic and you’ve been alone for too long and you just want to feel like this. That’s all this is._

Because it would be dangerous to feel anything about Jack Kelly. Davey didn’t know what he felt at the moment. Tolerance? Faint friendship? A bond they’d been forced to forge due to their living conditions?

Whatever it was, it wasn’t anything.

But not because he was forcing it not to be anything.

One thing was for sure, though: Jack had stumbled into his life. He’d tripped and fallen and landed at Davey’s feet, and when Davey helped him up Jack didn’t let go of his hand. 

Davey pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes and let out a long, low groan.

“Oh… Uh, sorry?” He heard someone say.

He snapped his eyes open. Smalls was standing in the doorway, backpack dangling off one shoulder, cheeks tinted slightly red.

“Oh, God, Smalls,” he said. His face burned. Why did everything in his life have such terrible timing? “No, it’s not you. Don’t worry. I’m just tired. Come in--did you need something?” he asked, hurrying to stand up from the desk.

Smalls fidgeted for a moment, clearly unsure, but she stepped into the classroom. Davey let out a breath of relief that he hadn’t scared her off after all.

“Yeah, actually,” she said. “I know you said a while ago that you’d be able to help me out, and I’m real confused about the intro paragraph.”

Davey’s heart skipped in his chest. She was coming to him. She was approaching him, and asking for help, of her own accord. It took pretty much every ounce of his willpower not to start squealing there and then. “Of course,” he said instead, with wide eyes. He stood up and moved to the desks, arranged in tables, and beckoned for her to sit beside him.

She took her seat, seeming a little nervous, and pulled a rumpled paper out of her backpack.

Davey leant over it. “So what exactly is confusing you?”

“The hook. And the thesis.” Her shoulders sagged a bit. “I just don’t really know where to start. I’m awful at writing.”

“Hey,” Davey said. “Don’t say that. Everyone starts out awful. You just have to work at it, and it’ll come. Just like--what kind of sports do you like?”

“Soccer,” she suggested after a moment, shrugging.

“Okay. Well, I’d be no good at soccer right off the bat, would I? I’ve never really played it. It’d be ugly. I’d trip and die.”

Smalls giggled.

The sound stunned Davey a little bit. It sounded so young, so purely happy, and neither of those were even expressions he’d seen cross her face thus far. He felt his own face break into a smile, hoodie troubles forgotten. “It wouldn’t be that bad! You don’t have to laugh.”

“Sorry,” she replied, and then giggled again.

“You are not,” Davey retorted, teasingly. He turned back to the little outline paper he’d pulled out. “Okay. A hook. You remember what I said in class about a hook?”

-

He visited Crutchie and Medda at lunch. Medda raised her eyebrows over the sip of coffee she’d just taken at the sight of his hoodie.

“Hey, guys,” Davey said, voice as defeated as he currently felt.

“Is that new?” Crutchie asked, tone sly.

Davey looked down at the jacket--he’d forgotten he was even wearing it, and the smell of Jack crashed over him again like a tidal wave. He fell to his knees on the carpet floor.

“David?” Medda asked..

Davey slid down until he was just lying there, on the carpet, the carpet that was probably absolutely disgusting but he didn’t care anymore. “I surrender,” he moaned.

Crutchie stood, grabbed his pillow-pet-topped crutches, and came over to him. “To what?” he asked.

“To life.” Davey rolled onto his back. “This hoodie? It’s my roommate’s. Okay? Is that it? That’s what you wanted to know?”

Crutchie’s eyes were wide--he was clearly afraid he’d crossed some invisible line. “Uh… so did you actually finally--”

“No!”

After plopping onto the floor beside him with a groan, Crutchie furrowed up his face. Clearly he couldn’t understand what other important feelings Davey might be having regarding Jack. “So what are you so upset for then? And why are you even wearing it?” His face lit up. “Did you steal it? Are you in love? Does Medda owe me?”

“No!” Davey repeated. “I did not steal it. We aren’t all weird, Crutchie.”

Crutchie looked at him, still lying on the floor of the choir room, Jack’s Goodwill hoodie on, dead behind the eyes. “Yeah,” he said, “ _I’m_ real messed up.”

“When I woke up this morning it was cold,” Davey said, flinging a hand over his eyes. “And all my winter stuff is still boxed up from when I moved, so he offered to lend me a hoodie.”

Medda, who had yet to contribute to the conversation, spoke up. “So why are you on the floor?”

Davey mumbled something into his arm.

“What?”

“I said because I like the way it smells!”

Even with his eyes covered, he could tell Crutchie and Medda were exchanging a look overtop of him. “Stop it,” Davey groaned.

Medda pushed out from her desk and stood up, heading over to them. She sat down on the floor too, although she grunted slightly about getting too old for this. “So what does it mean that you like the way it smells?” she asked.

Davey sat up, grasping the too-large sleeves to make sweater paws. “I don’t know. Maybe nothing.”

“So,” she said, lightly pinching one of his cheeks, “figure out what it means before you lay on my floor over it.”

Davey sighed. “And if it doesn’t mean nothing?”

“Then my floor is always open,” Medda answered, with a smile. “I’m not sure why you’d want it, though. It probably hasn’t been vacuumed since the ‘90s.”

“Perfect. Neither have all my emotional issues,” Davey sighed.

Crutchie creased up sympathetic yet amused eyebrows. “What does that even mean?”

“I don’t know that either. I don’t know anything. Smalls let me tutor her today.” Davey rubbed his eyes again. “I feel like I should mention that I’ve never understood the universe at all.”

-

Davey gave Jack his hoodie back that night. He headed down the hall and knocked on the door. There was a brief pause--then Davey heard _“Entrar”_ in a sing-song voice.

So he entered. Jack was painting on the floor, shirtless rather than in his paint shirt.

_Great._

“What’s up?” Jack asked, bright as ever. He must’ve noticed the redness on Davey’s cheeks, because he looked down at his exposed torso. “Oh, er, sorry. Wasn’t really expectin’ a visit.”

“Don’t apologize,” Davey spluttered out quickly. Too quickly. He winced, then made his best attempt to shake it off, producing the hoodie from behind his back and raising his eyebrows a little. “I just wanted to return this to you. Figured you might like to have it.”

“Oh, hey, gracias. I would’ve totally forgotten.” Jack pushed himself up off the floor and headed over to Davey, plucking the jacket out of his hand.

Davey nodded, pocketing his hands.

Jack folded up the hoodie and tossed it on the bed. Davey tried his best to sneak a glance at the painting on the floor. “Oh, it’s just nonsense right now,” Jack said when he noticed him looking. He knelt down in front of it, and then beckoned for Davey to kneel down beside him. 

Davey obeyed, lowering himself to the floor. He waved at Luna, who was sitting in her crib, and she waved back.

“Yeah, just nonsense,” Jack repeated, lifting it up for Davey to see. He’d covered a piece of printing paper in splotches of color--a mix of navy blues and blacks that didn’t look friendly, but with little sprays of yellow and cream and baby blue. Like little glints of hope in a giant dark ocean. “Sometimes I just paint how I’m feelin’. It’s really dorky--you wanna hear something really dorky?”

Davey couldn’t take his eyes off the paper. “Shoot.”

“I always think of how I feel in colors.” Jack brushed his fingers lightly over the smudges of color covering the thin paper. “And these little things, they’re like… if I painted what it looks like on the inside of my head.”

“What feeling is this?”

Jack looked at it. “Haven’t figured it out yet,” he said, finally. “Painting it is sometimes what helps me decide.”

“It looks sad,” Davey offered.

There was a tiny chuckle from beside him. “Yeah. My head doesn’t always look like a garden.”

They studied it a little more.

“Today’s been kind of hard,” Jack added after a moment, quietly.

And God, Davey didn’t know why that pulled at the strings of some pulled-taut soft spot deep in his chest. He didn’t know why he turned to Jack and asked, “You wanna talk about it?”

A gusty sigh escaped Jack’s chest. “Not yet,” he decided. “It’ll be easier to talk about once I make sense of it all. And I will. Just gotta do it in my own way.” He reached through the bars of Luna’s crib, touching her tiny hand. “I got a lot to make sense of in the world, but I’ll paint it. And I’ll get there.”

Davey wanted to help him get there.

Davey wanted to tell him that he had a lot to make sense of in the world, too.

But he really, really didn’t know how. 

-

Wednesday was an early release day for the students, and for the first time ever, Davey took the afternoon off, too. He drove straight home at noon, actually grateful for once to have an empty house. He dropped his stuff and then collapsed face-first onto the couch, trying to think of what destructive thing he’d like to do to process his emotions.

Or get rid of them. He’d be fine with that, too.

Drinking sounded like a good plan. He had a bottle of wine in his kitchen and he had a lot of feelings.

He texted Sarah. Are you up for ft and day drinking?

She responded in about two seconds. god yes. I’m studying for exams

So Davey dug out the alcohol and a cup and sat on the ground in front of the couch. A few minutes later, his phone was ringing with a call from his sister.

“Hey,” he sighed, as soon as he’d picked up.

Her hair was piled up into a messy bun and her eyes were tired and her hand was smudged with pink highlighter (the left-handed curse which Davey shared). “Hey,” she sighed back. Then she narrowed her eyes. “Okay, I’m a law student and I have about four breakdowns a week, but it’s noon, so why aren’t you at work and why do you have wine?”

“Early release day and I’m a mess. What do you got?” Davey asked, pouring himself a glass.

“I got exams that will determine my future next week and some beer I stole from my obnoxious roommates.”

Davey frowned. “You hate beer.”

“Not when I’m desperate I don’t.” He listened to the pop as she cracked open one of the cans. “Why are you a mess, dear brother?”

“My roommate.”

Sarah raised her eyebrows into her sip. “He seems to be on your mind quite a lot.”

Davey nodded and took a sip of his own. “I’m not pleased.”

“So… either you hate him or you really don’t hate him.”

He shook his head, pressing his palms into his eyes. “I’m confused, Saz.”

“I’ll drink to that.” Sarah took another swig of beer, made a bit of a face, then focused sympathetically on her phone camera again. “You think you like him, then?”

“No.”

She tilted her head.

“I mean… maybe?” He took another drink of his own, then leaned his head back against the couch behind him. “I just… I don’t want to.”

“Well, why not? I saw the picture. He’s hot.”

“Because he has a kid. And he’s straight. And this isn’t forever. It’s not like he’s staying here.” Davey downed the rest of the glass he had poured in pretty much one go, staring at the little pink puddle left in the bottom. Diluted, translucent, easily shaken. He sighed for about the millionth time. “And Crutchie’s, like…” He flung an arm out, already losing an edge of his usual coordination the way he did when he was tipsy. He’d always been a lightweight. “Crutchie’s like adamant that we become friends with benefits or something.”

Sarah considered it. “That could help you.”

“Explain?”

“Straight guys are pretty often willing to ‘experiment’. Maybe if you guys can do a thing like that, a no strings attached thing, you can sort through your feelings and sort of fuck them out and he gets to remain as straight as you’re convinced he is and then bam, you marry a cat lover and you and your roommate part as unlikely friends.”

Davey shook his head. He was more tempted by that plan than he wanted to admit. But he knew himself, and he knew what would happen to him; Davey was pure shit at the whole “no strings attached” gag. He’d fall for Jack, and Jack would never know, and it’d exacerbate his suffering to a whole new degree. “No. I don’t want that.”

“Maybe ask him to leave then.”

Davey furrowed his face over his glass, then swallowed and said, “I can’t do that.”

Sarah sighed softly, perhaps a little exasperated now. “So what can you do then?”

Davey downed his second half-glass. “I can suffer.”

He didn’t feel anything for Jack Kelly. Because he couldn’t. It was honestly, literally, that simple. He wasn’t going to complicate Jack’s life, and he wasn’t going to complicate Luna’s, and he wasn’t going to put his own wellbeing in jeopardy just because seeing his roommate shirtless made him shudder a little bit.

But he thought about everything.

The hoodie and the paint stains on Jack’s arms and the way he’d looked in the moonlight and he looked down into his empty glass and he just thought I can’t, I can’t, I can’t. He took up his own mantra, created hymns.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i am exhausted. Goodnight newsies world. next chapter (and beyond) will be much more exciting and purposeful, i pinky swear!!!


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> heyyyy!!! so the quality (and quantity, mostly quantity) of updates have been very lacking as far as this story goes lately and i do apologize!! like i said last chapter, school has been a challenge. but davey comes to an important revelation in this chapter...oooo, spooky. and i have some every exciting things planned for chapter nine so hold on tight folks ;))

_“I know. I was there. I saw the great void in your soul, and you saw mine.”_ \--Sebastian Faulks, _Birdsong_

-

“This is over.”

“Jack--”

“No. I’m leavin’. This is too much.”

“Listen--”

Jack turned his head toward Davey slowly. “You can look me in the face and tell me that your favorite cereal is cheerios? Plain cheerios, not even the honey nut kind? Your favorite cereal? Out of every single cereal that exists! Plain cheerios! Davey, what the fuck!”

Davey crossed his arms and jutted his hip out, looking at Jack defensively across the grocery store aisle. “They’re heart healthy.”

“I am in shock.”

“Plain cheerios are good! Some milk, some strawberries and bananas on top…”

Jack leaned closer to Luna, who was sitting in the little baby seat of the shopping cart. “Are you hearing this?” he asked her. She giggled at him.

“Luna agrees with me. She loves my cheerios.”

“You’ve fed my baby your sick plain cheerios?!” 

They were out together to restock the cupboards. Davey had said he was going to the store, and Jack, wanting to get some of Luna’s energy out, offered to tag along. Davey didn’t mind the company. It certainly made grocery shopping more interesting.

Luna was holding a cup of ramen, whacking it joyously against the handle of the cart.

“Are you gonna buy that?” Davey asked, pointing to it.

“Nah,” Jack said, stroking her soft hair. “Just keeps her busy. She always begs for a ramen cup when I take her shopping.”

Davey laughed. Jack and Luna just did that to him, made him laugh. “So she doesn’t accept any other objects? Just ramen cups? What if you gave her a bag of ramen?”

Jack shook his head. He laughed too. Davey thought he looked remarkably pretty when he laughed. “Nada. She just wants the cup.”

Honestly, Davey had been apprehensive about bringing Luna to the store, but she was behaving remarkably well; Davey thought that probably had everything to do with Jack. He seemed to have a thousand tricks up his sleeve to keep her entertained--one of which included letting go of the cart and crying out her name dramatically as it slowly rolled away. No matter how many times he did it, it cracked her up.

He also kept up an impromptu language lesson by picking up random things and showing them to her, telling her what they were called in English and Spanish, applauding with Davey when she managed to babble them back.

“You know, you say her name just right,” Jack said.

“What?” Davey asked. “Loo-na?”

“Yeah,” Jack said, smiling. “Most white people just say it like”--he took up an aggressively American accent--”Lew-nuh.”

Davey threw his head back and laughed. The sound made Luna smile too, and she clapped her hands.

Davey wanted to clap his hands, too. He couldn’t remember the last time he laughed to tears in a grocery store. Hell, he couldn’t remember the last time he laughed to tears, period. Jack was just messy in all the right ways, making the most menial tasks ones to laugh at. Davey thought it was a thing of beauty. 

Jack turned into a new aisle and immediately grinned. “Empty aisle,” he said. “Perfect.”

“Now what are you planning?” Davey asked, raising an eyebrow. 

Jack just grinned at him, before he took a few running steps and leapt onto the back of the cart. Davey watched him in astonishment as he went cruising down the aisle, Luna giggling so joyously Davey could hear her from the other end. Jack did the same from that end, riding the cart back over to his side with a windswept smile. “This is what grocery aisles were made for,” he said.

Davey just shook his head.

But he was smiling.

-

Weekly tutoring had become a tradition between Smalls and Davey.

Every Monday, she came into his classroom before school. Davey started showing up earlier and earlier, darting out into the icy cold of the day just so he could be there for her sooner. Their conversations definitely had a tendency to waver away from the essays and vocab sheets that he helped her on, but Davey was fine with that. And honestly, he thought Smalls probably was, too.

Whatever the case, Davey was glad that she was somewhere safe and warm for as many hours of the day as possible. Thus far she hadn’t really opened up about anything going on at home, but Davey felt that they were inching closer. He definitely felt it.

“So do you walk here in the mornings?” Davey asked conversationally, as she filled in her context clue sentences.

She stiffened, microsmally. But Davey was good at reading when he’d pushed too far, and he could tell he hadn’t yet. “I mean, it doesn’t matter or anything. Just wondering because of how cold it is out there.”

“Uh, yeah.” She twirled her pencil through her fingers. “Yeah, I walk.”

“How far do you live?”

Smalls thought about it for a moment. “Um, not sure. It’s probably like a twenty-minute walk, if I walk super fast. But I don’t mind walking super fast. I like it when it’s cold, when the air stings your face? That’s nice.”

Davey smiled a little. “You like the cold, huh?”

She nodded. She had abandoned her sentences now and was filling up the margins of the paper with a pattern of swirls. Usually, when she and Davey started talking, she switched from work to drawing. “Winter’s my favorite.”

“Me too,” Davey said. “I mean, I’m a giant wimp when it comes to being cold, but I’d much rather be shivering than sweating.”

Smalls laughed her sharp little laugh--it reminded Davey of Jack’s--and jerked her chin toward his heavy hoodie that he was wearing, even in the indoor heat. “Yeah. I can tell.” She had never replaced her trusty black jacket, swamping herself in it every day before she showed up to school.

Davey just shook his head. “You’re insane.” He paused, just watching her continue to draw. “So there’s no one to drive you?” he pressed carefully.

She shook her head.

“What about your parents?”

She lifted her eyes from the paper but she kept them dead ahead of her, focused on the wall now. “My dad leaves too early.”

“What about your mom?” Davey questioned.

Smalls leant her cheek into her hand. “She’s… She died when I was little. I don’t have her around anymore.”

Davey’s eyes widened. “Oh. I’m so sorry.”

She shrugged. “I never really knew her,” she admitted. “So, it’s not really a big deal.”

Davey’s mind flashed through what he’d seen--the limited supply of clothes, and the bruises, and the free lunches that Smalls got from the school, and now apparently a twenty-minute run to and from school in the freezing cold. “Are you close with your dad?” he asked, trying not to let anything bleed through into his voice.

Smalls finally looked at him. There was something in her eyes, something like a hunted animal. 

At first Davey thought she wasn’t going to answer him. Then she picked up her pencil again and said, “Not really.”

-

Jack had a strange request that night.

Davey was sitting at the small kitchen table, grading essays. Jack emerged from putting Luna down for bed, wearing a muscle tank top that said “wake up, hug dog, hustle.” It was so ridiculous and so him that Davey almost couldn’t suppress a grin. Jack ducked into the laundry room slash pantry and dragged a basket of he and Luna’s fresh clothes to the table.

They worked in silence, in that domestic way that they did often. Davey marked up grammar errors, Jack folded shirts and pants and Luna’s tiny dresses.

It was an odd comfort to Davey, just the space Jack took up. The way Davey could see him in his peripheral vision, hands flashing as he messily tossed things into their designated piles. The way he drummed his fingers against the wood of the table when he had to pause and think.

And then, out of the corner of his eye, Davey noticed Jack’s movements stall. 

At first he paid it no mind, but when Jack had been motionless for a worrying amount of time, Davey finally glanced up. Jack’s gaze was focused on him. Maybe it was nothing but the lamp light of their little kitchen, but there was something so soft and intent in his face that Davey had to break the eye contact. “Do you need something?” he asked, with a soft laugh.

Jack shook off his trance. “Er, sorry,” he said. His grin was easy, though. 

Davey tried to shrug it off, though there was now something strange creeping just under his skin. An itch just out of reach. He tried to settle back into grading.

“Can I ask you for something weird?” Jack asked.

Davey stiffened a tiny bit, his brain trying to spin what Jack could possibly want. For some reason it went straight to Crutchie. Oh my God, he thought, looking at Jack, please do not ask me to sleep with you.

Please don’t, because I know I’ll say yes.

“Sure,” Davey said. His voice squeaked. Shit.

But Jack’s request was far more innocent--seemingly. “Would you let me paint you?”

Davey was at an exceptional loss as to how he should respond to that. 

It must have shown on his face, because Jack hurried to elaborate. “I mean, just something real quick. I haven’t really had a chance to reference humans except from memory, and I figure it could help me. You can keep your clothes on,” he added in a wry tone. And then, with a chuckle, “I mean, unless you don’t wanna.”

“Um.” Davey tried to pretend that his face wasn’t burning at Jack’s last comment, tried to pretend that he wouldn’t be more than willing to take off his clothes right now and take off Jack’s, too, into the bargain--

“As soon as I finish up this laundry, anyway,” Jack said. “You don’t even gotta get up. I wanna draw you just like that, actually.”

“You wanna draw me grading essays?” Davey asked. God, this man was bemusing.

“Yeah.” Jack smiled. It was a smile that said he knew exactly what he was doing to Davey and simultaneously could not have been more clueless. “I like the lighting.”

“I mean. Sure. Go crazy.”

It couldn’t hurt. No, having Jack’s eyes on him, having Jack study every aspect of his appearance and try to recreate it and see it as something beautiful?

Yeah, it could hurt, it could hurt actually a lot.

But Davey shrugged and said again, “Sure.”

Jack beamed. “Cool beans,” he said, and Davey was still thinking who says ‘cool beans’? when Jack finished the laundry, tucked his folded stacks into the basket, and whisked it off to his bedroom. He emerged once again with a pad of paper and a selection of paint bottles under his arm. Davey felt ridiculously nervous.

He focused back on his essays. Tried to, anyway. The words sort of blurred in front of his eyes. “You’re literally drawing me like one of your French girls,” he said, and Jack busted out laughing.

Davey really liked Jack’s laugh. The laugh that exploded out of him when he really laughed, that was. It was sharp and whooping and loud, and it snapped in the air a little like firecrackers. 

“If that’s how you wanna think of it,” Jack said, smiling as he bent over his paper.

Davey tried his damn best to ignore it. He tried to keep on grading, but it was hard when he could see Jack right across from him, eyes darting between Davey and his sketching hand. Davey managed to focus on the analysis he was reading, managed to pick out all the mistakes and scribble them out in red pen. But he was also completely aware of it when Jack started to get out his paints, start dumping them onto a paper plate, and make a new sound with the brush across paper.

Eventually Jack began to hum to himself as he worked. He made a careful stroke with his brush, then said, “You have really nice lips.”

Davey took in a sharp breath through his nose.

Jack just kept on humming.

Of course he did.

Eventually, Davey’s supply of essays began to dwindle. They were the same ones he’d been grading with Luna last Sunday, and he was on the last of his seventh period. Soon he’d be all out. He didn’t want to be out. He didn’t want there to be nothing in the space between he and Jack.

But eventually he set the last finished packet aside and looked up at Jack. Jack was now almost solely focused on his painting; it took him a few minutes before he even looked up at Davey again, and when their eyes met this time, he gave Davey one of those ragged grins. “Welcome back to the world,” he said.

Davey got a chance to watch him as he painted. His black hair was long, hanging down in his face slightly. Probably in need of a trim. Those long eyelashes that Davey had fixated on the moment they met cast little tiny shadows over his cheeks. His dark eyes looked like spots of ink.

Davey thought that if he were any kind of artist, he’d draw nothing but Jack Kelly.

He bit his lip, trying not to fidget as he waited for Jack to be finished. At last, the man lifted his head and his face was breathless, as if he’d just run a marathon. His smile, it looked like it was made of a bunch of tiny scattered pieces that he’d gathered from all different places.

“Come look,” Jack said.

Davey stood up slowly, trying not to look too eager. He moved around the table.

As odd as it might’ve been, he felt nervous. He thought of that picture he’d seen in Jack’s closet long ago, the one he’d drawn of Davey without him knowing. It was scary to see himself through Jack’s eyes.

The picture was dim, but soft—low warm lights all mingled together, both behind him and over his face. In it, Davey was sitting, chin in one hand and red pen in the other, looking down at the papers on the table pensively. Pensive, but not unhappy. Not wound up too tight, or uncomfortable in the world, both things Davey sometimes worried he was.

Davey touched the edge of the paper and dared to look up at Jack. Jack had already been watching him. “Not bad?” he asked, with one of those grins that showed off his dimples.

“It’s beautiful,” Davey said. What else was there to say?

They stared at each other for a moment longer, dark eyes drilling into dark eyes, before Jack looked down at the painting again. He started to ramble on eagerly about it, the colors and how much he loved this lighting and how nice Davey was to paint (“you have these real great angles to you”) and where he’d put the shadows and why, and God.

God, looking at him, Davey saw something he didn’t think he’d ever seen in anybody before. He wasn’t sure how much longer he could deny that.

And it wasn’t just what Davey saw in Jack. Davey looked at himself in the painting again. Smart, but soft around the edges. Through Jack’s eyes, he looked like a man who was worthy of all the love in the world and more.

Davey didn’t have words for how terrifying and wonderful and impossible that seemed.

And Davey didn’t have words for the way his chest sank when Jack turned back toward him and finished off his speech with, “isn’t that cool?”

Davey swallowed. He lifted his hand away from the paper, cradling it as if it would assuage what he knew: that he had fallen deep in love with Jack Kelly, that every day he was falling deeper and deeper and if Jack didn’t come to catch him soon he was going to crash.

There was nothing else he could tell himself anymore.

“Yeah,” Davey said, looking anywhere but at the stars in Jack’s dark, dark eyes. “Really cool.”

-

“Why are you so angsty right now?” Buttons asked, glancing over at him as they reshelved books.

“I am not angsty!”

“Yes you are, and it’s disgusting.”

Davey sighed, jamming a biography about George Washington back onto the shelf with far more intensity than necessary. He mumbled something under his breath.

Buttons gave him her best teacher-look. 

“I think I’m--” he coughed over the second half of his sentence.

The librarian sighed. “Speak up please?”

“I think I’m in love with my roommate,” he said, letting his forehead fall against the bookshelf.

He stayed there for a few more seconds, eyes closed, growing increasingly unnerved by her silence the longer the time ticked on. Finally he lifted his head.

She was turned away from him, her shoulders shaking silently with laughter.

“Buttons!” Davey protested, picking up the smallest picture book he could find and chucking it in her general direction.

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” She finally came up for air, a hand on her chest. “Oh my God. I’m sorry. I just--I mean, Dave, we saw it coming.”

Davey buried his face into his hands. “I know,” he moaned.

She looked at him, face turning just a smidge more sympathetic when she saw the genuine distress on his face. “Okay, talk to me. What made you realize it?”

Davey picked up another handful of books to shelve. Might as well make himself useful while having a breakdown. “Just--so many things. He makes me laugh, and he has these fucking gorgeous brown eyes, and he painted me last night and just seeing the way he looks at me--Buttons. I’m in so deep.”

She had a small smile on her face again, but she patted his back. “Why is this a problem? You’ve been waiting to fall in love again for years, Dave.”

“I think that’s just it. I’m hoping that’s it. I’m too romantic, and I’ve been deprived, and he looks hot without a shirt on. This is just a gay phase. You know, because we’re finally friends? Don’t you always have a gay phase when you finally start being friends with somebody where you think you love them but you’re just excited by a new person in your life?”

“That is literally the least universal thing I have ever heard,” Buttons said.

Davey shook his head, dragging his thumb viciously over the edge of a book about mammals. “Just, I’m pretty sure he’s straight. And I don’t want to complicate things for his baby. And I think he’s still grieving over his last romance. And everybody thinks I should just hook up with him to banish my feelings.”

“That’s a terrible idea.”

“Thank you!”

“Not entirely a terrible idea, in theory. But you, David Jacobs, are only going to fall more in love with this man if you have sex with him.”

Davey buried his face in his hands, leaning against the cart. “I don’t know what to do.”

“Maybe you can find someone else,” Buttons suggested. “You know, go on a blind date or something.” She gasped eagerly. “Oh my God, can me and Crutchie set you up with someone? Pretty please,” she whined, when Davey gave her an terrified look. “I promise it won’t be somebody terrible. And what do you have to lose? You need to get over your roommate, don’t you?”

“Well…” Davey said, hating that she was probably right. “Yeah.”

“So it’s perfect!” She clapped her hands. “You’ll find new love, get over your mysterious roommate character just like that. Mysterious roommate is right. I haven’t even met him yet. What kind of friend are you, getting a crush before I’ve even approved him?”

Davey felt himself chuckle a little bit at the idea of a Jack and Buttons meeting. “He’s a disaster.”

“And you’re into him because he’s a disaster? I thought like forces were supposed to repel.” Buttons picked up the book Davey had tossed her way earlier.

“Ha-ha.”

Buttons gave him a kiss on the cheek. “It’ll be alright, Davey. You’ll see.”

“I hope so.”

He hoped so, yeah. But he wasn’t very confident in the finding-someone-else plan. Jack Kelly was pretty fucking irreplaceable, and Davey was afraid that all he’d do with someone new would be wishing they had dimples and paint stains on their clothes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YALL KNOW THE DRILL FOLLOW MY TUMBLR IT'S LIVINGCHANCY I AM VERY TIRED I JUST REALIZED IVE HAD CAPS LOCK ON FOR THIS ENTIRE NOTE BUT YOU KNOW WHAT WHO CARES ITS TOO LATE TO RETYPE IT!!! GOODNIGHT NEWSIES WORLD I LOVE U VERY MUCH <3


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> VERY VERY VERY LONG TIME NO SEE. here is this, 6k and full of sweetness, to make up for it!! and i blame school, as always, for my absence. enjoy :)))

_"Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same."_ \--Emily Bronte, _Wuthering Heights_

-

Outside, it was icy and snowy. Jack sat on the counter, helping Davey whisk together dinner. Helping was a very loose term, though--mostly he was taste-testing every bowl that Davey set aside, singing along to the Elvis Crespo that was blasting through the kitchen, and asking Davey all the random questions that came to his mind.

Also, despite the cold, he wasn’t wearing a shirt.

“It’s warm in here,” he’d said with an easy smile when Davey had demanded how he wasn’t freezing.

It was strange, seeing Jack like this. Luna was napping, and while Davey didn’t doubt that she was the center of his universe, he looked--and acted--so much younger when he wasn’t looking after her. 

“Do you think you could survive in the wilderness?” Jack asked out of positively nowhere.

Davey let out a little scoff, determinedly keeping his eyes away from Jack’s bare chest. “Like...?”

Jack leaned forward, bracing his hands on either side of him on the counter. “Like at this moment, if you were dropped into the middle of nowhere with nothin’ but the clothes on your back. Could you survive?”

He wasn’t sure why he actually took a moment to think it through. Thinking it through made him laugh. It was dangerous, he thought, how much Jack made him laugh. “Like Bear Grylls?”

“Yeah.” Jack picked up a little stray carrot slice from the counter and popped it into his mouth.

“Could you?” Davey asked.

Jack slowly crunched on his carrot as he considered it. “I think I could survive. But not for long. Like, I’d have no clue what to do. What’s the first thing you would do if you were in the wilderness alone?”

“Call for help?” Davey said.

“You wouldn’t have a phone, though. What then?”

Davey laughed again. “How would it come about that I would be dropped into the wilderness without a phone?”

He looked up at Jack again, and seriously, he looked so young. He looked like what he would be if fatherhood hadn’t whipped him into some messy sort of shape. His hair looked like bedhead even though he’d been awake all day, and there was a spot of green paint on his shoulder, and his crooked smile was there in full force.

“These are hypotheticals, Dave,” Jack drawled.

“Well then it doesn’t matter anyway, Jackie,” Davey drawled back in the same tone.

Jack’s smile was startled and wry. “Jackie?”

“You got plenty of nicknames for me.”

“Hey. I’m not complaining.”

“Okay. Good,” Davey said, making a valiant effort to remain straight-faced.

“Good,” Jack echoed in the same false nonchalant tone. After a pause, he said, “Actually, I think you should have more nicknames for me.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yeah,” Jack said, and Davey could swear his smile was flirty as sin. “Anything you want. Since I get two nicknames for you. ‘S only fair.”

“Like what? Peaches?” Davey threw his head back and laughed at his own suggestion. “Do you want me to call you Peaches?”

“Sure. Peaches it is.” Jack lifted the spoon in his hand, a makeshift toast. “To Peaches.”

“To Davey,” Davey said, smiling as he picked up his own spoon and clinked it against Jack’s.

Both of their heads snapped toward Davey’s phone when it buzzed from where it was charging on the counter. Davey lifted and checked it--it was a text from Les, and it made him gasp. “Oh, shit,” he said.

“Language,” Jack reprimanded, absentmindedly. Then he blushed. “Sorry. Luna’s not even here. Why are you swearing?”

“I totally forgot. I’m going in two days to visit my family for Hanukkah. Ugh, shit, I need to pack.”

Jack’s eyes widened, and just like that, there was something unreadable in them. Jack Kelly was the most closed open book Davey had ever met, he reflected. It wasn’t that the man tried to hide anything; he just remained incomprehensible. A book that was open, but perhaps written in a different language.

“So soon?” Jack asked. “I thought it was closer to Christmas. ‘S only the first week’a December.”

“Yeah, that’s how it works.” Davey sighed a little. “I’m taking half the week off work, and admin is going to be pissed, but fuck admin.”

Jack looked almost sad. “How long will you be gone?”

“Oh, probably… five days? It lasts eight, but capitalism keeps me bonded to work for the first few days of it. And I don’t technically have to visit my family. I just like to, the years that I can. Capitalism’s great.”

Jack let out a chuckle that sounded more bitter than any sound Davey had ever heard him make. “Tell me about it. Well. Lune and I will anxiously await your return. I didn’t know you was… What’s Hanukkah again?”

“Jewish,” Davey replied, rolling his eyes. “But yes, I am. The more you know, I suppose.” He tilted his head. “You okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” Jack said. His voice was a little pitchy, the way it got when he was being defensive, and Davey thought it was a little worrying that he knew how Jack’s voice sounded when he was being defensive.

Davey just waited. As a teacher, he could tell when somebody wanted to talk.

“The holidays are just kinda sucky for me,” Jack admitted. “It isn’t really like I got anywhere fun to go, you know? I been alone on ‘em for a good few years, and if I’m not alone, then I’m working.” He knitted his eyebrows suddenly, shaking his head. “Well, not alone. I’ve had Luna. But you know what I mean. I feel lonely sometimes.”

Davey felt a pang in his chest. “Of course you do. You’re only human.”

Jack shrugged. “I love my baby. But she don’t know much beyond animal crackers just yet.”

“Yeah.” He remembered what Jack had told him, about his family. A mother that overdosed, who had no parents of her own, and a father who probably didn’t even know he existed. And clearly the family Jack had found of his own was gone too, in some way he had yet to share, besides his daughter. It hit Davey slow, then fast, just how alone Jack Kelly was in the world. 

Jack scrunched up his mouth, then smiled again, and just like that he had bounced back. “But what can you do, huh?”

-

Davey was curled on the couch with Jekyll when he heard Jack and Luna enter the kitchen. He heard Jack murmuring in Spanish about bathtime and Luna’s eager conversational squeaks. For a moment Davey paused, listening to Jack start the sink. Davey knew what he wanted to say to Jack, right now, what he wanted to ask him. He just had to gather the words. Then he stood up and headed to the small kitchen.

“Hola,” Jack greeted. He had Luna in the kitchen sink, spraying her down, baby soaps lined up on the counter beside him. He claimed it was easier than the bath and since it was big enough why not save time?

Davey smiled. “So I wanted to ask you something.”

“Ah! No splashing! _Actitud_ on it!” Jack splashed some water back at his giggling toddler and then turned to Davey, black eyes expectant. “Ask away.”

“You totally don’t have to if it’s like… you know. An overstep. Or something. And that’s fine and I get it, I just have been thinking and I figured it would be the nice thing to do to at least offer--”

“Dave.” When Davey looked up, Jack was smiling at him. “Just ask.” 

He decided to just rip off the bandage. “Would you want to come home with me for Hanukkah?”

Davey avoided eye contact while spitting it out, for his own mental health and benefit, but now that it was out in the open he looked up. 

Jack’s gaze was surprised. “You… you mean it?”

Davey nodded. He wanted to make some sarcastic comment about not just speaking to hear himself talk, but for some reason, Jack’s candy-sweet eyes had his tongue biting itself. This was probably not his brightest idea yet, considering he knew how gone he already was for Jack. And bringing him home? Having him meet his family? As a plus one? Yes. Definitely not a bright idea.

But Davey’s morals were overriding his logic. He had a pretty hearty helping of both, and both had the tendency to battle it out when it came to any of his decisions. 

He’d been in bed, thinking, his mind just replaying Jack’s words about having nowhere to go on his holidays and, most of all, his attempt to brush it off because he figured he was powerless to change it. And maybe he was powerless. But Davey wasn’t.

“I mean…” Jack laughed. “Of course. I would love to. I just… Would I be, you know, intruding?”

Davey shook his head quickly. “Not at all. The more the merrier, my family says. My brother brings a new significant other to every single holiday--he can’t seem to keep one--and they’re always welcomed. I always come alone. I think they’ll like to see me with someone.” He stiffened. “I mean, not like we’re--you know--”

Jack cut him off. Davey made a mental note to analyze for four hours what it meant that Jack cut him off, when he got the time. “If you’re sure, I’d really, really love that,” he said, idly rubbing Luna’s soapy hair. He sobered and met Davey’s gaze dead on. “Thanks. Really. You know, for thinkin’ of me. It means the world.”

“Yeah. Of course.”

Of course Davey thought of him. Because he always did, these days. Because his heart went places his brain couldn’t follow, pushing itself into nooks and corners too tiny for his rational mind to do anything but claw at it futilely. It was maddening and scary and Davey wanted more.

“So… if you’re sure, and if I can get the time off work…” Jack bit his lip. “What should I bring?”

-

Davey opened up his family groupchat.

Davey: Folks!  
Esther: :)

(Davey’s mother didn’t know how to use her phone very well, but she still occasionally commentated in the group chat via emoticons and nonsensical but strangely prophetic phrases with bizarre punctuation mistakes. Mayer, his father, just didn’t have a phone.)

Sarah: yeeees  
Davey: May I have somebody come home with me for Hanukkah?  
Esther: A. Boy? !  
Davey: My roommate, Jack  
Sarah: ...so you’re bringing him as a….  
Davey: FRIEND.  
Les: hahahahah quirky joke  
Davey: But seriously, can I?  
Sarah: do you realize most people don’t bring the man they live with home to meet their family as a friend?  
Davey: I realize a lot of things. Can he come??  
Sarah: I mean. yeah  
Les: bring him on. wanna know the dude ur bangin  
Davey: We’re not bangin.  
Les: bang bang bang!  
Sarah: Mama and dad say yes, he can come  
Davey: Thank you!!  
Davey: Oh, also, can his baby come?

-

So this was how Davey found himself piling into his little car, with Jack and Luna, ready to drive two hours to drive through snow and meet his family.

Luna rattled her sippy cup in her car seat, looking out the window and saying “horse, horse, horse” over and over to herself.

“Why horse?” Davey questioned.

“Obsession of the week. She just learned the word and won’t stop saying it.” 

Davey chuckled. “As you do,” he said.

There was a thudding noise. Jack winced. “There goes the portable crib,” he said.

Jack had packed what he called a portable version of a crib for Luna--a laundry basket and the hope that there would be plenty of spare pillows to fill it with at Davey’s house. It had made Davey laugh. “Or she can just sleep in bed with me,” Jack had said.

Davey wasn’t sure what sleeping arrangements would be. Normally when they were all at home Davey and Sarah shared their old bedroom, but he highly doubted that Esther “I dote on my childrens’ loved ones more than my children” Jacobs would banish Jack and Luna to the couch. The idea of having to sleep in the same room as Jack scared Davey, a lot. 

“How on earth did you think to use a basket as a crib?” Davey asked.

“Poor life hacks,” Jack responded. “Katie found the crib we got for cheap on Craigslist or somethin’, but it ain’t portable unless I wanna rebuild the whole thing.” He laughed; usually Jack’s laugh sounded like firecrackers, but this time it sounded like a wave hitting the shore. “God, you shoulda seen me trying to build that thing. She said she’d never seen me get so frustrated.”

Davey was surprised by the sudden insight into a name he hadn’t heard leave Jack’s lips since that night on the porch. “How come she had to get it for cheap? Didn’t you say her dad was this real rich businessman?” 

Jack sighed. “Yeah, but he didn’t help. Didn’t want anything to do with us.”

Davey frowned. “Why?”

He watched Jack’s face change as he thought. It was strange how many answers a one-word question could have. 

Davey was just starting to think he wasn’t going to answer when Jack said, simply, “Because he was a dick.”

It was the first time Davey heard him swear.

-

Davey’s childhood house was two stories, but it wasn’t big. 

He liked to think of his family as poor in money, but rich in love--and rich they were. Just the sight of the townhome had his heart swelling. He wouldn’t be embarrassed for the richest man alive to see the almost-crummy area where he grew up, so he certainly wasn’t embarrassed for Jack and Luna to see it.

Jack unbuckled Luna from her car seat; she’d fallen asleep a ways into the journey and clung to her father blearily. Davey wasn’t sure if Jack didn’t notice or didn’t care that Luna was chewing on the collar of his shirt.

“This is the place, huh?” Jack smiled. “I love it.”

Davey chuckled. “Really? Love’s probably a strong word.”

“You love it, dontcha?”

“Well. Yeah.”

Jack’s smile grew. “Then so do I,” he said, crunching through the snow past him.

Davey bit down hard on his lip.

What the fuck did that mean?

He followed Jack up to the front door. These five days were going to be long.

Sarah was the one to open the door. Davey didn’t have time to be surprised she’d made it home before him before she was lunging forward and going on tiptoe to squeeze the life out of him. “Hey, Saz,” he said, with a breathless grunt. “I love you but I can’t breathe.”

She let him go, then hugged him again, burying her face in his snow-dusted shoulder. “That’s the aim. I missed you so much!”

This time, he was able to wrap his arms around her in return. “I missed you too,” he said, unable to quell his grin. He would hug her for at least ten more minutes, but he was conscious that Jack was probably beginning to feel awkward right about now. “Saz,” he said, disentangling his twin sister from him. “This is Jack.”

He gave her a stare that pleaded with her not to embarrass him.

Sarah’s eyes widened like she hadn’t even noticed Jack. “Oh my God, hi!” She let out a loud gasp. “And this is Luna! Oh, hey there,” she said, shaking Luna’s tiny hand. Luna looked at her curiously. “Oh, she’s so cute,” she said to Jack, straightening. Sarah hadn’t ever been big on babies, but evidently, Luna had her a little smitten. Davey could relate.

Jack chuckled. “Thanks. Can only take some credit for making her--I wasn’t the one who had to give birth.”

If Sarah’s eyebrows rose any higher they’d vanish into her hair. “So you’re the famous roommate, huh?”

“Guess so.” Jack sent a curious look at Davey. “Famous implies you heard a lot about me.”

“Oh, believe me,” Sarah said. 

Davey kicked her socked foot with his boot, and as she was giving him a sour look, he led Jack inside. “Come on, let’s not stand out in the cold,” he said. 

Esther Jacobs was glowing when Davey and Jack entered the kitchen. “My babies!” she said, throwing her arms around Davey first. Somehow, even despite the near-foot he had over her, when she hugged him it made him feel small.

“Mama,” he said, touching her cheek before glancing over at Jack. “This is Jack. And Luna,” he added. Luna was looking around the unfamiliar house with wide, curious eyes.

Jack smiled as Esther gasped, similarly to the way Sarah had, and Davey could swear he detected some nervousness in the charming crook of Jack’s lips. “That’s us,” he said.

“You’re both so cute! Oh, and strong as well,” Esther added, squeezing Jack’s arm as she pulled away from a sideways hug with him. Davey felt himself go a little red, but Jack just laughed. “And such a lovely name for the baby. Well, arein, arein! Set down your things. I suppose little Luna counts as a thing to set down. Here--”

“I’ll take her,” Davey offered, grinning as he and Jack awkwardly traded off baby and luggage. As soon as Luna had been shrugged into his arms, he headed over to his father, who was stirring something at the stove.

“Dave,” Mayer greeted, in his quiet but warm way. While Esther always tended to greet like an excited puppy, Mayer stayed back in a way similar to a cat--but he always offered affection to all his children. He was a gentle man. “How’s teaching been treating you?”

Davey smiled a little as he disentangled his shirt from Luna’s fingers. “Relatively good, so far. Haven’t had my keys stolen again this year, at least.”

(That’d been quite the fiasco).

Mayer chuckled. “That’s good. And you’re looking like a father already.”

Esther was shouting up the small staircase for Les. Sarah and Jack had disappeared; Davey could only assume she was showing him where to set down he and Davey’s things. So they really were a unit for the week, it seemed. That thought alone had him so flustered he almost missed his father’s comment.

Almost.

“ _Papa,_ ” he protested.

“What?” Mayer asked, smile teasing and all-knowing. “Just saying.”

“Well, you can quit just saying. I’m not a father. I’m more of a glorified babysitter.” 

“What’s the deal with this roommate, then?” Esther asked before Mayer could, heading back over to Davey and kissing him on the cheek. “Is he straight? Have you kissed? Shall I plan to have this little darling be my grandchild?” Esther gently took Luna out of Davey’s arms, pulling her tiny dress down and crooning over her. Davey had a feeling Luna was going to get all the crooning she could stomach from his family.

“There’s no _deal,_ ” Davey said, smiling slightly. “He--”

A shout cut him off. “Davey!”

Les came sprinting down the staircase, slid across the kitchen tile in his socks, and nearly bowled Davey over when they collided. Davey yelped, doing his best to hug his little brother back after grabbing the table for support.

Not so little anymore, Davey thought as Les pulled back. He honestly wasn’t used to his brother being older than twelve. For a nineteen-year-old he still had some of the odds and ends of a teenager; long legs he hadn’t quite grown into yet (he was taller than Davey and reminded Davey of it constantly), big eyes, pale freckles on his nose that refused to fade all the way. Secretly, Davey wanted him to look so young forever.

“I missed you, bro! How you been? And where’s your boytoy?” Les added.

Davey cringed. “Please don’t say that again, ever.”

Les cackled.

As if on cue, Sarah and Jack came scurrying down the stairs. “What’s the sleeping situation?” Davey questioned.

“You and Jack in our room, Les in his, me on the couch.”

“I’m telling you, I can sleep on the couch. It’s no problem,” Jack insisted, for what Davey could tell was a third or fourth time.

Sarah shook her head. “I’ll be fine. You’re a guest here, not me; and besides, you have a baby.” She looked at Davey. “I would sleep with you and banish Dave to the couch, but I sort of have a policy against sleeping in the same bed with men I don’t know.”

“Smart,” Jack amended.

Les all but dragged Davey over to the couch. Jack collected Luna from Esther, and Davey heard his mother laughing at something Jack said before he followed all the Jacobs siblings over to the small living area for a game of gin rummy.

“You ever played gin?” Les asked as he dealt the cards.

Jack shook his head. “Nope.”

Sarah gasped. “We’ll teach you. I always win.”

“That is a lie, I always win,” Davey cut in.

Sarah made a face at him, then she and Les both turned to Jack. They sat on the floor around the coffee table, Luna in Jack’s lap. Davey watched his siblings explaining the rules to Jack, and it felt so right that for a while he let himself pretend it was how things would always be.

-

Jack, of course, joined them for dinner. He watched Mayer light the menorah beforehand with an odd look in his eyes, one of curiosity and wonder. They were on the fourth candle tonight, since Davey hadn’t been able to take all the necessary days off work. Davey found himself watching Jack’s reflection in the window, defined by the glow of the candles. Luna watched the small flames lick the air, too, her black pupils just as big and wondering as her father’s.

Once they had sat down to eat, Mayer explained the tradition to Jack--and to Luna. He explained the song, and the menorah, and even some of the foods. Jack listened intently.

“What were you raised as?” Mayer asked curiously. He smiled a little bit, and guessed, “Catholic?”

Jack chuckled. “My Mexican's showing, huh?” 

Luna made a little gurgling sound, and Jack turned to her, cutting her food into smaller pieces so she could spear them more easily (with Davey’s help). As he did so, Jack shrugged. “I mean, not really. If I’m being honest--and I don’t wanna overshare or anything but--I lost both my parents when I was pretty teeny. I never really did have a family, much less a religion. Some’a the homes I stayed in, they took me to church and stuff, but nothing ever stuck.”

Mayer nodded his head, eyebrows creased gently. “I see. Well, we fully welcome you to share with us.”

“You’re part of the family now,” Sarah added, sending a little wink his way. 

For once, Davey wasn’t embarrassed. He nodded too. “Both of you,” he said, helping Luna pick up some more food with her fork.

Jack smiled. Davey swore he saw him wipe his eyes a little bit.

-

Jack and Davey reported to the bed they would be sharing. It was a double, at least--Davey and Sarah’s old bunk bed had been replaced, though some evidence of their childhood room still remained. The starkest of which was a certificate on the wall that Davey had gotten when he won his eighth grade spelling bee.

Jack laughed when he saw it. “Smart boy, huh?” he said.

Davey smiled. “I went to the district spelling bee, and won it. I lost at the regional one, though. I was cut to ribbons over it but my school had never even had anyone make it past district, so they still remember me as the kid who did.”

Jack continued to look around the room, running his fingers over Sarah’s softball medals and grinning at the stuffed animal collection hanging in a net in the corner. He took down one of two neon frogs; Davey had grabbed them both at once from a claw machine years ago, out of sheer luck. Sarah had laughed and said, “It’s us!”

Luna immediately reached out her small hands for it. That was what Davey had noticed--she grabbed onto anything that got close enough for her to.

After getting permission from Davey, Jack handed her the frog.

“Your family’s real nice,” Jack said, sitting on the bed beside Davey and Luna.

Davey smiled again. “I love ‘em. And they love you.”

Jack flopped down on his back into the pillows, pulling Luna onto his chest with a playful growl. Then he looked back up at Davey.

“It’s true what they said,” Davey said. “You’re more than welcome to share them. And our religion, too. I always forget that you didn’t really have what I did, growing up.”

Jack kissed Luna’s soft head, both arms wrapped around her. “That means the world. Really, it does.”

He stood up, settling sleepy Luna in her little basket bed. Davey tried not to let his heart race at the fact of sharing a bed, because Jack didn’t seem bothered in the slightest. At least the man was fully clothed.

Jack sprawled out dramatically across the sheets, yawning. “Well, I’m beat. Guess findin’ a new family takes it out of you.”

Davey shifted under the covers, tossing them up over Jack’s face and giggling when he huffed. “Well then let’s sleep,” he said, shifting a tiny bit closer--just close enough to feel Jack’s warmth.

-

Davey woke up in the middle of the night to an empty spot in the bed beside him and the bedroom door creaking open. His phone told him it was three in the morning--he blinked blearily and sat up on his elbows, looking through the open door into the hall. He was prepared to accept that Jack just went to the bathroom or something and sink back into sleep, but then he saw that Luna’s basket was empty, too.

Maybe she was the one who needed the bathroom. Davey didn’t know. He figured he may as well go get some water.

He padded down the carpet stairs, relishing as he always did in their familiar squeak. When he arrived in the kitchen, he was surprised to see Jack already there, Luna on the counter beside him. He was singing to her--Little Liza Jane again.

“Jack?” Davey asked.

Jack turned around, face flushing. “Hey.”

“Luna okay?”

“Oh, she just woke up and was fittin’ to fuss. I came down to get her some juice, walk around with her a little. She’s restless cuz she slept on the ride up here.” Jack was looking into the open fridge with bewilderment on his face. “Do you guys got juice here?”

“Orange juice,” Davey said, pointing.

“Pulpless. Good. She hates the kind with pulp in it.” Jack grinned as he poured it into the sippy cup he’d brought along. It was Luna’s favorite, and Davey could scarcely remember seeing her drink something out of anything other than this sippy cup.

Jack handed it to her; her tiny hands took it like a vice. “Cup,” she said.

Jack chuckled. “That’s right, that’s your cup. And that’s juice, in the cup. _El jugo.”_

“Ugo,” Luna repeated.

Jack stroked her soft downy hair, watching her drink it with all the world in his eyes. They stood there in silence for a little bit.

“You know, I didn’t know you stayed in foster homes,” Davey said.

“Yeah. Not very many, though, I… well, I spent a good deal of my teenage years in juvie, to tell you the truth.”

“Juvie?”

“Yeah,” Jack said again. His face was oddly blank as he talked about it. “I didn’t kill anyone or anything, but I was a delinquent. You know, like… possession a couple times, robbery, assault for fights I got into.” He looked at Davey. “And you know cops. They’re real damn quick to put away the brown kid living on the streets.” 

He looked away again, and sighed. “And that’s how I ended up workin’ for Katie’s dad. My P.O.--my parole officer--he got me a job as a janitor, so of course her dad knew all about my past. That’s why he was so horrified about me and his daughter, partly. I can just hear him now, yellin’ at her a room away from me like I wasn’t even there. Yellin’ how could she end up with an orphan Mexican straight outta jail. I mean the way he talked about me you’d think I’d sold her smack.” 

“That’s shit,” Davey said. “And that sounds useless, but I mean it. I’m sorry.”

Jack smiled a little. It was a sad smile, a sleepy smile, and he leaned back against the counter in Davey’s childhood house, Luna clinging tight to her cup in one hand and to him with the other. Davey wanted to take a picture of them, file it away, keep this night forever.

“No, ‘s all good now,” Jack said. “I got my baby.” He looked up. “And I got you.”

“Yes, you do. Long haul.”

“Long haul,” Jack repeated. “And don’t apologize for sounding useless. Things mean more when it’s you saying them, somehow.”

“Ugo,” Luna said again.

Jack smiled; his dimples showed. “That’s right,” he said.

-

Luna put up a fuss when Jack tried to put her back in the basket, so she ended up sleeping in bed between Jack and Davey. Davey didn’t mind; she clung close to Jack, anyway. 

So that was how Davey woke up; to a view of Jack, looking up at the ceiling, both arms wrapped around a soundly-sleeping toddler.

Davey loved them both so much that he felt his chest ache.

“What’re you lookin’ at?” Davey asked quietly, following Jack’s gaze.

Jack jumped a little bit, surprised to see Davey up. “Good morning, _guapo._ ” He smiled. “I’m lookin’ at the glow stars up there. Do they still shine?”

“Probably not much anymore. I put those up there in middle school,” Davey said, pulling the blankets higher up around himself. God, he really needed to stop looking at Jack, but he just couldn’t. His cheek pressed into the pillowcase under him, his shirt sleeve scrunched up over his shoulder and showing off the lean muscle, those long eyelashes so utterly visible as he looked straight up. His black hair was full-on bedhead.

“I like them,” Jack said.

“Me too. I miss them sometimes--like, I always look up above my own bed expecting to see them there.”

Jack’s head tilted to the right slowly, as if he was sliding this information to a particular side of his brain. “Yeah.”

“We should probably get breakfast,” Davey said, looking adoringly at Luna in Jack’s hold.

Jack nodded, then let out a deafening gasp. Davey jumped, immediately growing alert as he assumed some emergency had occurred, but then Jack got up, leaving Luna in the bed, and sprinted to the window. “It’s snowing!”

Davey chuckled a little. “It snowed at home.”

“I know, but I can’t remember the last time I seen it fall.” Jack touched the cold glass of the window, and after a moment of thought slid it open.

“Jack!” Davey protested, burrowing further under the blankets as a gust of cold wind blew in. “What the hell?”

“I just gotta feel it,” Jack said, closing his eyes and leaning toward the screen, breathing in the negative temperature. He turned to Davey after a little while of this, and then ran to the bed, pulling him out. “C’mon. You feel it too,” he said, tugging him directly to where the wind was blowing in. Luna had begun to wake at the commotion, so Jack picked her up.

He held her in one arm, and with the other, he spun Davey around dancer-style. “ _Nieve_ ,” he said to Luna, showing her the falling snow. 

Jack started to sing in that teasing baritone that he didn’t really have, a Spanish song Davey didn’t know, as he spun both Luna and Davey around the cold room until all three of them were dizzy and shivering and giggling. _“Algo en tu cara me fascina,”_ he sang, smile wide as the sea. _“Algo en tu cara me da vida…”_

-

One of the last mornings they were staying, Davey woke up before Jack and Luna. He came down into the kitchen, bundled up in fuzzy socks and a hoodie, and found his mother already sitting at the kitchen table.

She gave a surprised smile upon seeing Davey. “Good morning, Dave. Early riser?”

“Yeah. Teacher instinct, I suppose.” He poured himself the remaining coffee from what she’d made and settled down at the table with the festive cinnamon creamer. 

This made Esther laugh. “You suppose,” she echoed. They sat there exchanging quiet small talk for awhile--she asked him how he’d slept, and then how Crutchie and Medda were, and how teaching was.

“Well, I do have one student who’s giving me some trouble,” Davey said after a bit.

“Oh?”

“Her name is Lauren--she prefers to go by her last name. Smalls. I think… I think she’s being abused at home.” He gave her a rundown of all the evidence he’d been presented with--that her mother was gone, the bruises, the limited wardrobe, how early she showed up to school every morning.

Esther looked worried. “Well, bubala, have you not reported anything to anybody?”

“Just my friends. I don’t know--what if I’m wrong?”

“And what if you are right?” She tilted her head, pulling her bathrobe tighter around her. “I think that a little potential embarrassment is a small price to pay if the other outcome is saving a child’s life. And from what you have told me, there’s very small chance you’re misguided.” She reached over, touching his shoulder, then the left side of his chest. “Follow your heart,” she said. “It has never failed you so far.”

She was right. Davey knew she was right. He needed to call CPS, or at least say something to his bosses. Smalls’s life could depend on it; he’d been silly, this whole time.

“And speaking of your heart,” Esther added, looking somewhat mischievous now. “It has done you one hell of a favor leading you to Mr Kelly.”

Davey turned a little red. “Yeah?”

Jack had definitely hit it off like gasoline and flame with his parents. He was warm and friendly with Esther, and a good conversationalist with Mayer. He got him to do more opening up than Davey had seen in a long time.

“He’s had it rough,” Davey’s mother said, looking a little emotional. “I can tell. But he is good to you, and good to Luna.”

Davey chuckled a little. “Is this you begging me to propose?”

“I am not saying anything,” Esther said, putting up her hands. “All I will say, my baby, is that you find a man like him once in a blue moon.”

-

The night after they got home, Davey was reading in bed when there was a knock on his door. Jack entered, hands behind his back, looking a little sheepish and a lot excited. “Hey. I have somethin’ for you,” he said.

Davey smiled as he set his book down, sitting up and letting his duvet pool in his lap. “For me?”

“Yeah. I mean, nothing fancy, but…” Jack sat down on the bottom of the bed, biting his lip. After a moment of hesitation he lifted his hands, placing a thin package into Davey’s lap. It wasn’t wrapped or anything, so he could see immediately what it was.

Davey grinned.

“Glow stars?” he asked.

“I remembered you missed your ones from home,” Jack said, as Davey ran a thumb over the lettering. “And I saw those when I was grocery shoppin’. Just seemed like the obvious thing to do.”

Davey set down the pack and looked at him. He just couldn’t believe this man. He couldn’t believe this man was in his life, of all the lives in the world. That right there could convince him to believe in miracles.

Jack looked nervous. “Do you… like ‘em?”

“Of course.” Davey shifted up, leaned over the small distance to hug Jack from the side. Jack looked pleasantly surprised; thus far, he had initiated all the hugs. It felt warm and right and all-encompassing in the moments before Davey pulled back. “Thank you.” To get some more of that warmth, Davey grabbed Jack’s hand and held it.

Jack looked down at their hands. He didn’t pull back. “I wanted to repay ya somehow. For letting me come to meet your family? It was… nobody ever did anything like that for me before. It’s the first holidays in a long time that I ain’t been lonely, and it was all thanks to you.”

Davey squeezed his hand and looked up at the ceiling. “Will you help me hang them?”

They stood on Davey’s bed and hung the glow stars, while Luna slept a room away. And they were so many things that they were nothing at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope you liked! check out my tumblr, rb the post for this, leave a comment if you like bc i Adore Them!! see you later newsies folks <3333


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WOW. HELLO. IT HASN'T BEEN ALMOST THREE MONTHS OR ANYTHING.  
> i'm really really sorry. i've been trying to stay afloat in school and it just sort of took up all my time for writing. but i'm on winter break right now, so i had time to finish up this bad boy, yay!! you might wanna reread the last few chapters to refresh on what's happening here, seeing as it's been so long skfdksjd  
> but hey! there's a SHIT TON of drama in this one. enjoy...

_"I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,_  
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.  
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,  
in secret, between the shadow and the soul."  
\--Pablo Neruda, _XVII (I Do Not Love You...)_

-

Life continued on in the Jack-Davey-Luna-Jekyll apartment smoothly, carrying them to Christmas. Davey and Jack did chores together, Jack painted, Luna threw her food on the floor and left her toys all over as death traps for Davey. And every day, Davey fell a little more in love with Jack.

It was getting stupid at this point.

The littlest things made Davey’s heart ache. Like Jack’s excitement, for example, about Christmas. He’d bought four stockings from the dollar store and hung them above the tv--one for each member of the household, he said. He said his last happy Christmas had been years ago.

Davey wanted to make this one good for him.

So, it was Christmas Eve. They were on the couch watching a movie together--well, they _had_ been watching a movie together. Now it was over, credits scrolling past on the muted screen, as Jack and Davey lounged under blankets on the couch. They were sober, but Davey felt buzzed off Jack’s company, and off the late hour they’d stayed up. Luna was in Jack’s lap, half-asleep.

“Do you ever feel like you don’t have a personality?” Davey said.

Jack cackled. “What?”

“You know, like…” Davey flailed his fingers a little bit. “I don’t know. Like--I hate how much I’m saying the word ‘like’--I don’t really have interests and I kind of act different around everybody, I think.”

“You have interests,” Jack said. “Like books. And cooking. And cats.”

“But do I have a personality?”

“Bruh. I don’t know.”

Davey decided on a different approach. “Do you feel like _you_ have a personality?”

Jack’s lips pursed right, then left, then forward. He blew out a sigh, eyes widening. God, Davey caught himself thinking, he has gorgeous lips. “I mean…” 

“I think you do.” The words burst out of Davey before he even knew they were coming. “You’re a painter, and you’re clumsy but you have a good heart. And you love Luna.” There was yellow paint on Jack’s hand, bright against his dark skin, and Davey wondered at how he could know him so much and yet so… little. There was a part of Jack Kelly that Davey just didn’t understand, not yet. Some dark part, a part that had seen pain and abandonment, a part that had inspired him to be good for Luna like no one had been for him.

Jack laughed. His laugh was slower, deeper, than usual. “Sounds ‘bout right. Painting and my baby are all I got.”

“And me,” Davey said. “You got me.”

Jack widened his eyes in feigned shock. “Wow, did you just use incorrect grammar?”

“I did. That’s how much I mean it.”

“I do got you.” Jack touched Davey’s hand, tenderly. Davey swallowed a little too hard and kept his eyes on the yellow paint.

Jack’s smile turned lopsided, mischievous. “And apparently I got a personality, too, huh?”

Davey blushed a little. “I don’t know what I’m saying.”

They were quiet for a little while. Davey found himself studying the smudge of yellow more. He brushed his fingers over it, summoning Jack’s attention. “Were you painting earlier?” Davey said. “How’d you earn this one?”

“Yeah.” Jack smiled, lifting his hand. “Can’t get ginger hair right if you don’t add some yellow. It’s a whole entire mix of things, you know, red hair? You can’t just do orange, and you can’t just do red. It’s red, into orange, a little white, and you go over it all with yellow to add those little streaks from the sun. Beautiful.”

“Were you painting--” Davey cut himself off. His lips were too loose.

Jack had heard, though. There was something in his eyes that smoldered, and for a moment Davey honestly thought he was going to get up and walk away, but then he said, “Yeah, I was painting her.”

“I’m sorry.”

“‘Bout what?”

“That… I dunno. That I brought it up.”

Jack shook his head; then he shook it again.

“Did she…” Davey paused. “Did she leave? I’ve just wanted to know...well, I just want to know you better.”

“No,” Jack snapped, with ferocity that knocked the wind out of Davey. “She never woulda just left. She wouldn’ta done that to me.” But then the venom was gone, and he stared down at his hands. His voice shrank. “She wouldn’t have done that,” he repeated, but this time he didn’t sound sure.

Davey didn’t say anything.

“It doesn’t matter anymore,” Jack murmured.

“Clearly it does matter to you. You wouldn’t paint somebody who doesn’t matter.”

“It shouldn’t matter anymore, then. Okay? If I wanna forget about it I can’t talk about it anymore.” 

“But you can paint about it?” Davey asked.

“Painting’s different.”

“I’m sorry.”

Jack forced his tense shoulders to relax. “It’s not your fault.”

The movie credits ended.

“So are we doing presents tonight?” Davey didn’t really celebrate Christmas growing up, so he wasn’t sure of the etiquette--did you open presents Christmas Eve, or Christmas Day?

“I really wanna,” Jack said. “I don’t think I can wait any longer for you to see yours.”

Davey nodded. “Let’s go ahead then. Do you do the whole Santa thing for Luna?”

“Not till she’s old enough to notice. I’m poor,” Jack muttered, and Davey laughed.

Davey hadn’t owned a Christmas tree prior to Jack moving in, so they’d bought a mini one--about a foot and a half tall, colored a ridiculously shiny shade of silver. Their small selection of presents was in a circle around it. Davey had laughed and said it looked like some kind of sacrificial ritual.

They transferred onto the floor, and Jack gently shook Luna awake. “Time for presents, _mi vida_ ,” he murmured, stroking her hair. 

“Luna first,” Davey decided, and Jack nodded.

“Here you go, baby. For you to unwrap,” Jack said, demonstrating by tearing off some of the paper. She understood right away, ripping into it eagerly. This one was from Davey: a stuffed cat which happened to look very similar to Jekyll. Luna squealed, squeezing it tight in her clumsy little hands. 

“So she doesn’t take the piss out of the real Jekyll so much,” Davey explained to Jack, who was already grinning. “The other one’s boring, just some diapers and stuff, because I figured you can never get enough of those.” Luna had begun to tear into said boring gift, keeping the cat in her lap.

“Not boring at all. Much appreciated. _Gracias_ ,” Jack said sincerely. His gratitude was always sincere. His present to Luna was a little singing piano.

Jack and Davey faced each other. Both of them smiled, arbitrarily shy all of a sudden. “You can go first,” they said in unison, then paused.

“No, really. You,” Davey finally insisted, smiling.

“Hope you didn’t spend too much money on me, Dave.”

“You’re fine. Who else am I gonna buy Christmas gifts for, my extremely Jewish family? Don’t worry about it.” Davey watched him tug the tissue paper out of the bag with bated breath.

Really, it was a simple selection of things. Some candy Jack had mentioned liking, a set of nice new paintbrushes and paints, and a roll of paper.

Yeah, it was simple, but Jack’s dark eyes still glistened with all the excitement in the world. He reached over and hugged Davey with one arm, then looked at it all again. “This is all beautiful. These are amazing,” he said in awe, examining the brushes and the paints. “I’ll paint like the rich. Thank you. I mean it.”

Davey smiled. “ _De nada_ ,” he said, and Jack laughed.

“Good accent, white boy.” Jack nodded toward the messily wrapped present still sitting in front of Davey. “Go ahead,” he added, practically vibrating with excitement.

Davey picked it up. Jack’s wrapping skills were absolutely hideous, especially when compared to Davey’s neat, strategic methods. But somehow Davey adored it. Endearing, charming, wrapped with love. Whatever you wanted to call it, it was all there.

Honestly, as Davey tugged off the mangled paper, he wasn’t sure what to expect. What he pulled out was a book.

“Collection of 20th Century Spanish Romance Poetry,” Davey read aloud from the cover. He looked slowly up at Jack.

“Open it,” Jack urged.

Davey did. It was a collection of poetry alright, in both Spanish and English; and Jack had filled the pages up with artwork. Little tiny painted details surrounded the words, flowers and angels and stars and animals and abstract designs.

Davey was speechless.

“I thought you already seen most poetry, because you teach about it,” Jack explained. “But I figured maybe there’d be some fresh stuff for you from Spanish poetry. And I figured… I could read some of it to you, give you a translation. And I also figured I could make it more special by decorating it.”

Davey let out a stunned, breathless laugh. “Jack, this is beautiful. Do you even realize how beautiful this is?”

Jack’s smile was shy. “I have some idea.”

“Read me one?”

Jack took the book, and breathed in a steadying breath. 

_“De noche, amada, amarra tu corazón al mío._  
Y que ellos en el sueño derroten las tinieblas,  
como un doble tambor combatiendo en el bosque,  
contra el espeso muro de las hojas mojadas.” 

Davey was breathless. The words rolled off of his tongue so unbelievably beautifully, and so rhythmically. English seemed so clumsy in comparison.

As if Davey weren’t breathless enough, Jack offered a translation. “At night, tie your heart to mine, love. And both will defeat the darkness, like twin drums beating in the forest, against the heavy wall of wet leaves.”

Jack smiled. “Pablo Neruda,” he said.

And Davey kissed him.

He leant forward, slow sliding connection as their lips fit together. His heart took over his entire body, making his whole being pulse, beat in time with Jack. Jack remained very still, shoulders slumped forward and eyes closed. Davey was the one to tilt his head; Jack didn’t move a muscle.

When Davey pulled away, slowly, Jack opened his eyes. There was something odd in their inky depths.

“Davey,” he said, not moving anything except his lips. “I--”

“I’m sorry,” Davey blurted, his mouth already working overtime. “I just… I thought there was something… I didn’t even think that you might not be ready yet for…” He gestured between them, his fingers shaking, his brain chanting out a mantra of _you fucked up, you fucked up, you fucked up._ Davey was sure he had fucked up brutally, even though he couldn’t yet read the look on Jack’s face.

“It’s not that,” Jack said, lowering his head. “Dave, I’m not… I’m not gay.”

Oh.

Davey swallowed. “Then… what--”

Jack’s voice was small. His voice was Atlas, carrying the world on its shoulders. “I didn’t think you thought any of this was... romantic.”

“How could you not have?” Davey questioned, feeling anger bloom up in his chest now.

Jack seemed to sense the sudden heat in Davey’s tone, because he shifted backward. The air between them practically wavered, like smoke distorting a sunny day.

“You--” Davey couldn’t seem to speak in full sentences. He shook his head. “So then what? All of this has just been some no-homo thing to you? You didn’t stop to think even once that maybe you’ve been playing with my feelings?”

“I ain’t been playin’ with anything,” Jack insisted, his face furrowing up. 

“That’s bullshit. It’s bullshit and you know it.” Davey stood. He had to put space between them. He was right, he’d been right the entire time, and yet--

Jack was still sitting. “Dave, I didn’t even know you was…” He trailed off.

“Gay?” Davey turned back toward him. “You can say it, you know. It’s not a bad word.”

“I didn’t mean it like--”

“So would that have made a difference then? You wouldn’t have moved in with a--”

“Davey,” Jack said in an alarmed voice, finally standing up.

And Davey was suddenly lost. Jack disarmed him, like he always had. He lowered his tense stance, and they were quiet for a few seconds, watching each other, just trying to understand. He could tell both of their minds were running in circles, like gerbils on wheels--chasing every rung of thought and still getting nowhere.

Davey took a deep breath. “Jack,” he said. “The way you’ve been… the thing that’s going on here… it’s not platonic. I don’t care what you’re telling yourself. And I just don’t think that I could have even made an assumption like this if I thought you were completely straight.”

Jack was quiet, lips slightly parted. Davey hated that he wanted to kiss him again.

“Jack, haven’t you even ever wondered?” Davey asked in a tiny voice, taking a step closer. “You’ve never even questioned whether or not you could swing both ways?”

“Davey, where I grew up, we didn’t get to wonder.”

Their gazes met again. Jack’s eyes looked like planets knocked from orbit, careening through something as big and dark and unforgiving as space.

“We didn’t get to wonder,” Jack said again, and his words were a little rough now. “In one of the neighborhoods I lived in this kid got killed. Killed. Just ‘cuz someone thought they saw him kissin’ another guy. You were straight, or you were dead.”

“I’m sorry, Jack,” Davey said. “I didn’t…”

Jack’s voice was wobbling, sliding up an octave higher. He began to pace in circles, tangling a hand in his own black hair. “I’m not. I’m just not. Okay? And I can go, if you want. I didn’t wanna make you think anything that wasn’t true.”

“No,” Davey insisted quickly. “You don’t have to go. It’s okay. We can just be… this.”

“This?”

“What we are,” Davey said. “What we’ve always been.”

Jack stopped pacing. He gazed at Davey, looking so young and vulnerable that Davey wanted to throw a blanket over his head or something equally ridiculous.

“I need what we are,” Davey said, stepping closer to Jack like he was a frightened animal cowering under a bed. “I need you, Jack. I know I fucked up but just… don’t leave. Okay? I don’t know what I’d do if you did.”

Jack let his hand fall from his hair and hit his side, a dead weight. “I need you, too.”

Davey didn’t let himself wonder what that meant.

Jack went to bed after that, so Davey did, too. He stared up at the glow stars on his ceiling, and he wanted to rip them down. He wondered why stars were drawn with five points when a star was really just a ball of gas. He wondered why things always looked like more than they were.

-

Jack emerged into the kitchen the next morning as Davey was pouring himself some coffee.

Davey turned around and leaned against the counter; he clutched his mug as Jack rummaged through dishes to throw together Luna’s breakfast. 

They had to talk. Davey knew they had to.

Merry Christmas.

“Are we okay?” Davey asked.

Jack’s movements stopped. He turned around. “Yeah.”

“I’m sorry. That I kissed you, and that I got defensive. And Jack, if I’m being honest, I really like you. But I…” Davey swallowed. “I get it if you’re freaked out by that, and you can go, if you want. I know you didn’t sign up for any of this. I know you didn’t try to get me to fall in love with you.” Davey paused, and then realized what he’d said. “I mean--not that I’m in love, I just mean…”

(Wasn’t he, though?)

Jack finally turned all the way around. “No, Dave. I’m not freaked out. I shouldn’t have said shit the way I did, it made it sound like… I dunno. Like I have a problem with… that. I don’t. And if you don’t want me to leave, then I’m not going to. You’re--well, you’re one of my best friends, okay? And me and Luna still need help. Not that we’re leeching off you or anything…”

Not that I’m in love with you. 

Not that I’m taking advantage of you.

“So we’re good,” Jack said.

“Yeah. We’re good,” Davey said.

(Were they, though?)

-

If Davey’s mother beat him over the head and shoulders with one lesson, it was to always turn to your friends in times of trouble.

So, that weekend, he called them all up to go out for some coffee and get some much-needed comfort.

When Buttons, Medda, and Charlie arrived, Davey looked up to crack a weak joke. “The cavalry's here.”

“Babes,” Charlie said, coming to stand beside Davey. “You look sadder than you were when they told you to take Animal Farm out of your curriculum. Is everything okay?”

“Is it Smalls?” Buttons asked. 

Oh, Lord. Smalls. Here Davey was, all absorbed in his own shit about love, and she was possibly in danger. His mind went back to what his mother had said, that he should follow his instincts and report his suspicions. He knew she was right. Wasn’t she always? In all this excitement (which hardly seemed like an appropriate name for it), she’d slipped his mind.

The thought made him moan low in his throat and sink down to rest his head on the table.

“Dave?” Medda leant closer, worried.

“So it is Smalls,” Buttons said.

“No,” Davey said, into the tabletop. “I mean. I’m upset about that too, but it’s about Jack.”

“Roommate Jack?” Medda questioned.

“Sexy artist Jack?” Crutchie asked, at the same time.

At last, Davey lifted his head. For once he didn’t try to derail Charlie’s embarrassing comments, and clearly that was how resident piano prodigy could tell something was genuinely wrong. “Yeah. Him. We kissed.”

“That’s great!” Buttons said, and when Davey faced her miserably, she raised an eyebrow. “Or not?”

“He flipped,” Davey said. “Went on this whole tirade about how he’s not gay.”

Medda winced. “Oh, honey.”

Davey dragged his fingers across the indents in the wood, like he could find some hidden message in them. Like there was an answer there, linear braille. “I just don’t understand how I could have read things so wrong.”

“Maybe you didn’t,” Buttons suggested, hands wrapped around her mocha. “Maybe he… maybe he was into you, and then the kiss was just too much, so he backtracked. Chances are that it’s all his issue. It probably doesn’t have to do with you at all.”

“Okay,” Davey said. “But if it doesn’t have anything to do with me, what am I supposed to do in the meantime?”

None of them seemed to have an answer to that.

After a moment, Davey sighed. “I don’t know.”

“I know it’s the last thing you want to hear, but maybe it’s for the best, love.” Medda rested a comforting hand on his shoulder. “I mean, he does still have a baby. And if he decides he’s not gay and you just wind up being an experiment, that won’t be any fun for you.”

“Being somebody’s first gay experience isn’t the road to a long-term relationship,” Charlie agreed, with surprising seriousness considering that ever since Davey first mentioned Jack he’d been encouraging him to rail the man.

“I don’t know if what I wanted from him was a long-term relationship,” Davey answered, mouth twisted in uncertainty.

“So then what did you want?”

Davey sighed thickly, letting his head fall into his hands. “I don’t know.”

“Like I said,” Medda insisted, gently. “For the best.”

And yeah, maybe it was. But that didn’t mean that Jack Kelly was going to stop running circles around Davey’s mind any time soon.

-

Davey came out of the hall that night to go get himself a glass of water. The porch light was on, and when Davey peeked through the curtains, he saw Jack smoking out front.

Davey turned away and headed to the kitchen.

-

“Yes. I want you to.”

Buttons was staring at Davey, eyes equal parts excited and concerned and bewildered. “You, David Jacobs, want me to send you on a blind date? Which I was mostly kidding about doing when I brought it up before.

Charlie gasped. “I have the perfect guy.”

Buttons furrowed her brow. “Seriously?” 

Crutchie nodded his head eagerly. “A friend of mine. He was telling me about how he has a crush on this guy, but he has to get over him. I think it could be perfect.”

“So I’m gonna be a rebound,” Davey said.

Charlie rolled his eyes. “Yeah, and so is he. This is going to be the gays’ lonely hearts club band.”

Davey had decided, after a long time of thought and a little too much caffeine, that he had to kill his feelings for Jack. They were unrequited, and pointless, and if he wanted to keep Jack in his life (which he did, he wanted him in his life so bad), he needed to move on. He’d remembered Buttons talking about signing him up for a dating website, and it had really gotten him thinking.

Luckily, no Grindr was going to be involved, if Crutchie’s mysterious friend agreed to give Davey a test run.

Charlie squeezed him. “I’ll text him. Oh, this is so exciting! I’m glad you’re letting us do this, babes.”

“Don’t make me regret it, please,” Davey sighed.

Charlie kissed his cheek. “Absolutely not. It’ll be great. You’ll love my friend, I swear. Somehow he seems like your type.”

Davey didn’t know if that was a warning or a good omen. He touched his lips. He felt rotten inside, turned upside down and shaken. And he knew that no matter who kissed him, he’d think of Jack’s lips.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow!! apparently it's my thing to make characters freak out after they kiss for the first time. idk. hmu on tumblr, reblog the post for this, hope you've had and are having happy holidays, happy new year (WHAT), goodbye!


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you should know that i officially added the tag "slow burn" to this after writing this chapter.  
> davey goes on a blind date and finds a familiar face... jack is feeling some kinda way. read on to find out more!

_"You should be kissed and often, and by someone who knows how."_ \--Margaret Mitchell, _Gone With the Wind_

Jack Kelly’s world had been turned upside down.

Who was he now that David Jacobs had kissed him? He knew who he was before. He was Luna’s father, and Katherine Pulitzer’s other half, and he was straight.

He thought he was.

But, yeah, okay. Maybe he’d looked at Davey through eyes that were a little too intrigued since the moment they met. Maybe he felt drawn to Davey in the exact same way he was drawn to Katie. Maybe he wanted to paint him just as much as he wanted to paint Katie, and to Jack, painting was everything.

So maybe now he’d stayed up a couple nights, listening to his rickety ceiling fan (rickety or not he was grateful to have one--at his last place there were absolutely no fans) and wondering if he was gay.

 _Haven’t you ever wondered?_ Davey had asked him. _If you could swing both ways?_

Haven’t you ever wondered, Jack? 

Haven’t you?

David’s voice. His voice that Jack had loved since the moment they met in that coffee shop, loved for its softness and its lilt. His voice. It wouldn’t get out of his head. It was too gentle to hate, and that made it even worse.

Jack looked across the room to Luna, who was beginning to fuss. Perfectly, there was a strip of moonlight coming in through the window, creating a slash right across her eyes. She screwed up her face and whimpered, the beginning of a meltdown. Jack stood up and moved over to her.

He lifted her out of her crib. “Papi’s here,” he said to her, bouncing her in his arms as she whimpered. He carried her to the window, and looked out. “You see that there? The moon? That’s you, baby. You were named after her. _La luna.”_

They both looked for a moment.

“The moon’s caught between two things,” Jack whispered to her. “The sun, and the earth. And it loves them both.” He closed his eyes; they filled with tears. “But earth’s the only one with people on it who can see the moon.” The moon should realize that, he thought.

A tear fell down onto Luna’s cheek. She pulled Jack’s shirt collar. “Papi,” she said. “Yor?”

That was her trying to say _llorar_. Cry.

“Yeah, baby. Yeah.” He carried her over to the bed with him and laid down, holding her close, a little scrap of the things he once knew to be true. She was all he had left of that now.

Jack loved Luna. And he loved Katie. And he loved Davey.

Love, to him, was not something to be ranked. He didn’t think of it as loving Davey as a friend. He didn’t think of it as loving Katie as a girlfriend. He didn’t think of it as loving Luna as a daughter. He just loved.

It seemed like the only thing to do that made any damn sense.

“Papi?”

Jack kissed her head. “I’m okay, baby.”

-

Davey hadn’t known even remotely what to expect of the friend Crutchie was setting him up with. Crutchie’s selection of friends definitely fit the whole “box of chocolates” metaphor. You never knew what you were going to get. For somebody in his early twenties, the man had laid down a hell of a lot of roots, some in extremely bizarre places.

So, Davey tried to adequately prepare himself. He tried to put himself into a mindset of readiness to be hit with a wave of weirdness.

But in retrospect, he hadn’t at all been ready for the man who was waiting for him at the restaurant Crutchie and Buttons had chosen.

-

Jack watched in confusion as Davey rushed around the apartment, muttering to himself about whether or not he should wear a tie.

“Going somewhere?” Jack asked slowly, looking back down at the onions he was chopping. He was making menudo tonight, which had proven to be a favorite of Dave’s, among most of the things that he cooked. Jack hated to toot his own horn, but he could make some mean quesadillas.

Davey sighed. “I let a friend set me up on a blind date. And I think it was a really bad idea. I’m so nervous.”

Jack stiffened.

A blind date.

A blind date which should not bother him at all, because he told Davey he was straight, because he made it very clear he didn’t want a relationship with Davey.

So why did he feel sick?

“Oh,” he finally managed to say. “Really?”

“What the fuck do I wear?” Davey asked, and Jack was still so shellshocked that he didn’t scold him for swearing in front of Luna. “I have to go in an hour. I don’t know how fancy the restaurant is. I don’t know who this guy is, so I don’t know what he’ll like. Do I take a shower? Oh, God, it’s been so long since I went on a date.”

Every time David mentioned dating guys, Jack felt a weird twinge in his chest. 

“Um… when is it?” Jack asked. “I can help you get ready, if you like.”

 _Bad idea, Jack_ , he told himself. _That’s such a bad idea, that’s an unbelievably bad idea._

Davey looked at him. His eyes were curious and strange, unreadable, his lips pursed to the side. After a moment, he said, “Yeah. I would like that.”

Jack nodded. “Okay. Well, my advice? You should definitely take a shower. It’s the best guaranteed way to smell good, and everybody likes a dude who smells good. So quick, go on!”

Davey nodded, paused, then nodded again and ran off. Jack watched him go, and then went back to cutting his ingredients. “He’s crazy, Lune,” he sighed softly to his daughter, though Davey was definitely not the only crazy one.

After Davey had been gone for a while, Jack decided he better start laying out some clothes. The man would be late otherwise. He sifted through Davey’s laundry with one particular shirt in mind--a dark blue button up that Jack had always thought made Davey look particularly pretty. When he found it, Jack smiled victoriously. 

Davey burst out of the bathroom, towel slung over his hips. “Did you get a shirt for me?” he asked in surprise.

Jack was too busy staring at Davey’s happy trail to answer; his response was delayed until he finally managed to heave his eyes to the man’s face. “Uh...yeah! I like this one on you. And it kinda fits any tone, you know?”

“Yeah,” Davey said quietly. He looked at the shirt for a moment before he grabbed it and ducked into his bedroom to change.

“Shit!” Davey shouted as he emerged in the shirt and a pair of black jeans, rushing back into the bathroom. “I forgot to shave.”

Jack stood in the doorway, watching as Davey rubbed shaving cream all over his face with frantic fingers and fumbled for a razor.

Jack spotted one right away; he reached out, and touched Davey’s arm to summon his attention. “Here,” he said, handing it to him. Davey stopped his erratic searching and stared at it in Jack’s hand, blinking a few times as he took it, slowly. Their eyes met, and it was far too electric.

“Thanks,” Davey said, nodding a little. The moment he looked away, Jack released the breath he’d been holding.

Davey started to shave--and immediately nicked himself.

Jack grimaced as Davey swore and stuck a piece of tissue on the bleeding spot.

And then, Jack had another bad idea. A bad idea to rival all bad ideas, ever.

“I can do it for you,” he offered.

Davey stopped dead. “What?” 

Jack just held out a hand. It was a tearing off of the band aid, a way to do the thing he shouldn’t before the sensible part of his mind could object.

Davey handed it over. Jack moved closer to him, and found his breaths shaking as he gently held Davey’s face still with a hand on his jaw. Davey’s eyes were on him, hazel and searching, as Jack started to clear away all the shaving cream.

Jack was gentle. Unbelievably gentle as he shaved away the faint stubble over Davey’s chin, almost as if he thought the man would shatter if he moved too fast or pressed too hard. As he worked, Davey’s breath hit his face. It smelled minty and sweet, and Jack could smell Davey’s cologne, too. The cheap kind, the same kind Jack used. 

It was true, what Jack had said all those weeks ago while he was painting him: David Jacobs had remarkably nice lips.

Neither of them spoke.

Jack pulled back. “There. You’re all set.”

Davey touched his own face. He didn’t even look in the mirror to make sure it was alright. His eyes were locked onto Jack’s. “Yeah,” he said softly. “Yeah. Thanks.”

They stood there for a moment longer.

Davey reached out and gently squeezed Jack’s bicep. “I should go,” he whispered, with a smile that appeared and fell as quickly as a blink.

-

The restaurant that Davey pulled up to was not fancy, but not casual either. It was a healthy medium, and so good that he had dressed the way he had.

He gave himself a once-over in the rearview mirror. And then another, and another, until it was a thrice-over. God, why was he so nervous? He lifted a hand; it was shaking. Because he wanted this to go right, he told himself. And not because of Jack’s warm hands holding his jaw, his chin. And not because of Jack’s eyes, big and brown and feathery somehow, directly on his face, so close, so... 

Davey realized abruptly that anybody walking by would see a dude alone in his car stroking his own neck, so he dropped his hands to his thighs.

He pulled up the text conversation he had going with Crutchie. 

Davey: You guys almost here?  
Crutchie: yeah! time for you to suck him :)  
Davey: Christ.

A moment later, true to his word, Crutchie sent word that they had arrived. Davey took in a deep breath. Then he climbed out of his car.

As he reached the doors of the restaurant, he saw Crutchie standing there. Next to him was a vaguely familiar figure, and as Davey got closer, it looked more and more familiar. His stomach was in knots.

It was… Spot?

His neighbor. His Selena-obsessed neighbor whose apartment Luna had wandered into more than once after escaping the house. The man who Davey was being set up with on a blind date was _Spot._

“Spot?” Davey asked.

Spot looked equally bemused as Davey approached. “David?”

Crutchie scrunched his nose. “Um… well, I was going to introduce you guys, but it seems I’m missing something. Sean. You know Davey?”

“We’re neighbors,” Spot and Davey answered, in unison.

Crutchie’s eyes widened.

“Small world, huh?” Spot said, with a grin.

“Damn right.” Crutchie looked distressed. “Please tell me you guys don’t secretly like, hate each other.”

Davey laughed. He was actually really relieved that he wasn’t about to go on a date with a total stranger. “No. We’re okay.”

“Yeah. We don’t know each other that well, but I like what I’ve seen so far.” Spot looked him up and down, and Davey felt himself go hot all over. “And I like what I see now.”

Davey smiled, albeit shyly.

“Should we go inside?” Spot asked, and he glanced at Charlie. “Thanks for the ride, Crutch. I’ll see ya.”

Charlie looked startled but pleased by the turn of events. “Well, um. Okay. If you’re both okay with this, then I’ll leave you to it.” He waved, cheeks amicably flushed. “Have fun, you two.”

Spot rolled his eyes, then focused on Davey again. “Shall we?” 

Davey nodded, and tried for a smile. He should be able to smile. This should be good, he should be excited. “We shall.”

It wasn’t crowded; at least, not crowded enough for there to be a wait. They were led to a booth, and Spot ordered a rootbeer. For some reason, Davey (who had gotten himself some alcohol) was oddly amused by that. “So,” Davey said, leaning over the table. “I should ask what you do, because I realized I don’t know much about you at all.”

Spot sighed, tapping his fingers on his menu. “Well, I… I’m living off disability payments, right now, actually. I was tweaked out about comin’ on this date, and at first I didn’t want to, because I’m not exactly so great off right now. But I feel like I should be straight with you right off the bat, and you can go, if you want.”

Davey tilted his head. _If Crutchie has set me up with yet another Latino dude who is a single father, I might scream._ “Shoot.”

“I’m a drug addict, or used to be, technically. I spend five days a week at a rehab center, you know, during the day, and then go home at night. But I’m doin’ real good, and I’m trying to find a job. It’s just hard to find one when you got… you know, a record. But I'm back in touch with my parents, and they've been helping me, and they've been amazing to me. They had to cut me off when I was younger, for the good of all." Spot shook his head. “But I get it if you don’t wanna bother with a junkie. I really do. We can call it quits right now.”

“No.” Davey shook his head. “You’re trying. And that’s all that counts. And you seem intriguing, Spot…?”

“Conlon.”

“You seem intriguing, Spot Conlon. Crutchie didn’t tell me anything about you, so.”

Spot laughed. “Yeah, sounds like him. But I don’t know much about you either. All I really know is that you’ve got a roommate who plays some good ass tejano. Oh, and I hear you’re an English teacher?”

“You heard right. Seventh and eighth grade.” Spot winced, which made Davey laugh. “Not nearly as scary as you might think. At least I’m not the poor asshole in charge of teaching non-honors kids.”

“I never took to readin’ and things. Then again, I wasn’t exactly an upstanding citizen when I was in school.”

“You don’t have to answer if you don’t know, or if you don’t want,” Davey said. “But what kind of aspirations do you have, for when you finish rehab? Are you saving up for school?”

“I don’t have my high school GED,” Spot admitted. “So I’m workin’ on getting that right now. But once I have it, I’d love to help people like me. You know, a counselor, or a peer support worker.” He ran a thumb through the moisture on the side of his glass. “I dunno. Pipe dreams.”

Davey smiled wistfully. “Those are the best ones.”

After they had been silent for a moment, Davey caught Spot studying him curiously. Davey raised a questioning eyebrow.

“Sorry for the starin’. You just seem like you’re somewhere else,” Spot explained.

Davey flushed. He’d been thinking about Jack. “I’m sorry.”

“No, no. Don’t apologize. I’m somewhere else too.” Spot studied him for a second, and then said, “Do you wanna go back to my place? Watch some bad movie, eat some ice cream? I don’t think either of us are in shape for a date.”

They hadn’t even ordered yet, but Davey smiled. Softly. “I would love that.”

So they piled into Davey’s car, and drove to their shared apartment complex. “Race isn’t here right now; he’s out partyin’, as the kids do. I stopped doing that shit. I had to.” Spot kicked aside some clutter as he led Davey further inside. “Sorry it’s a fucking mess. Wasn’t expecting company.”

Davey not-so-discreetly looked around. The layout was exactly the same as he and Jack’s apartment, but somehow it looked so different. They had an Xbox, for one thing, which Davey had heard them loudly competing on more than once.

“Alright. Uh, we got Neopolitan ice cream in here, and we got Netflix, and we got feelings. You can go ahead and sit on the couch. Want some pajama pants? My legs are probably too short for you to share mine, but Race won’t mind.”

Normally Davey would never wear a total strangers’ pants, but he really wanted to get out of these jeans. “Please.”

As Spot fetched him the pajama pants and then collapsed next to him on the couch, Davey looked over to the wall. He thought about how right now, Jack was probably literally not even twenty feet away from him. Just a wall away. His chest ached.

“Hey,” Spot said from beside him. “You got some shaving cream on your neck.” Spot swiped it away, and held it up on a finger.

Davey burst into tears.

-

Jack was jealous.

He didn’t want to be. He had no reason to be. But he thought about Davey going out with some other guy, he thought about Davey getting over him, and it was unbearable.

But how was that fair? How could he be in love with someone else? He was in love with Katie. He had promised he would be in love with Katie until he was dead, he had sworn there would never be anybody else.

He furrowed his brow, holding Luna in his lap. He’d been reading to her, but now he was staring into space as she entertained herself with her little singing piano toy.

Jack wanted Davey for himself. He _did._ But he didn’t know how to have him. He didn’t know what he would do if he got him. So wasn’t it only fair that he let him go?

Just because something was fair didn’t mean that it was easy.

Luna began to fuss. Jack hushed her, standing up and beginning to sing to her. “ _Tengo paz como un rio, tengo paz como un rio,_ ” he crowed quietly. _“Yo tengo paz como el rio en mi alma…”_

-

“Hey, hey,” Spot said, looking panicked by Davey’s sobbing. “I’m, uh… I’m sorry, man. Did I say something?”

It took Davey a few more minutes to gather himself enough to reply. “No, you--you didn’t,” he said, breaths still hiccuping. “I’m sorry.” He wiped his eyes, staring down at his lap. “Christ, this is embarrassing.”

A box of tissues appeared in front of his face. Davey glanced at Spot, and then took it, blowing his nose. “Thanks.”

“No prob. Uh… so, you wanna tell me what that was, or…”

“It’s my roommate,” Davey said. “I’m obscenely in love with my roommate. But… well, I kissed him, and it was a mess, and to make a long story very short, he doesn’t feel the same way.”

Spot winced. “Damn. That’s tough.”

Davey laughed shakily at the understatement. 

“For me, it’s Charlie,” Spot admitted, after they’d been silent for a moment. “I’m head over heels, but… there’s just no way.”

Davey was extremely startled by this. He sat up straight, own troubles forgotten for the moment. “Wait, wait. You’re in love with Crutchie?”

Spot winced again. “Yeah, hammer it home, huh?”

“Sorry, sorry. I just... I would’ve guessed your roommate long before Crutchie.”

“Oh, Race? Nah. He’s a great guy, but he’s taken. His boy’s name is Albert. And besides, Race is really not my type. For one thing, he doesn’t like Selena, and that’s damn unacceptable in a dude you’re gonna date.” Spot grinned, then shrugged. “Nah,” he said again, “it’s Charlie. It’s always been Charlie. The first time I saw him play piano, damn, I remember knowing I was in some deep shit. It was my gay awakening for one thing, so that was a whole fuckload of trauma I had to overcome. But things just… they wouldn’t work between us.”

“How do you know?” Davey asked. 

Spot gave him a _keep talking, but be very careful what you say next_ type of look.

“I mean…” Davey stretched his legs out in front of him. “You haven’t even tried to initiate anything. I’ve known Crutchie for a few years now, and he’s completely single. The only dates he’s gone on have never been serious, and if you’re already friends…”

“I just don’t feel like I’m good enough for him,” Spot confessed. “I mean, he’s this incredible musician, he’s a genius for Christ’s sake. I dropped outta high school. How can I compete with that?”

“Competing isn’t the point,” Davey insisted, shifting around to be in front of Spot rather than at his side. “And relationships are way more boring if you’re dating someone who’s exactly the same as you. Trust me. Take it from a guy who’s been on horrific dates with other English teachers.”

Spot smirked a little. “You sure that’s cuz of them being the same as you or the fact that they’re English teachers?”

“Okay, you know what, this is not about me.”

Spot laughed.

“From what I know about you, Spot, you’re a good guy. You’re the kind of guy that Crutchie deserves. I think you should go for it. I mean, I went for it, and it wound up being the worst case scenario, but my roommate and I are still friends. Somehow I doubt you’ll get the worst case scenario, though.

Spot nodded slowly. He ran a hand through his own hair, and then raised an eyebrow at Davey. “You’re smart, you know that? Maybe them English degrees aren’t as bullshit as I thought they were.”

Now it was Davey’s turn to laugh. “Movie night?” he asked, and Spot nodded, smiling right back at him. A moment of happiness, of hope, for them both. Maybe they hadn’t hit it off in the way Crutchie and Buttons had been hoping, but something had happened here. Something that Davey didn’t want to get rid of. 

-

Jack was still awake when Davey got home, late that night.

“Hey,” Jack said, from the couch.

“Hi.”

For a second, it felt like they were strangers.

“How’d it go?” Jack asked.

Davey pocketed his hands. “Oh,” he sighed, “alright. But I don’t think we’ll be going on a second date.”

Before Jack could even sense it coming, he grinned wildly. Luckily Davey didn’t see it, but he hurried to wipe it away. “Uh… that’s a bummer. How come?”

Davey headed over to the couch, one side of his mouth quirked into a wry, tired smile. “Because,” he said, sitting on the opposite end as Jack, “we’re both in love with other people.”

Jack sat up. He was so scared to be in love with Davey, that was the only thing. He didn’t feel like he could allow himself to be--wouldn’t it be unfair to both Davey and Katherine if he tried to move on? After he swore so soundly that there would be nobody else but her? It would feel fake. It would feel wrong.

But she was gone. And there was somebody else, there was David Jacobs.

Jack wasn’t religious, but it wouldn’t take much to convince him that God, some kind of god, whoever He may be, had sent Davey to him.

“I’m sorry,” Jack offered. It was all he had to say.

Davey shook his head, and leaned his elbows onto his knees. His eyes were sleepy and resigned to something that Jack wasn’t sure of. “It’s not your fault. It’s not your fault my heart runs away with itself, and I shouldn’t make you clean up the mess. I’m sorry. I’m drunk. I shouldn’t be telling you this shit.” He stood up.

“Hey,” Jack said, reaching out for him. “It’s okay. You can talk to me. I get it if it hurts.”

Davey smiled again, sadly, and placed a hand on top of Jack’s head. He moved it down the side of Jack’s face, cupping his cheek for just a moment, before he let it fall. “I’m gonna go to bed,” he whispered, and then he was gone.

-

That night, Jack had a dream about Davey.

They were in bed together, in the dream. Davey was trying to wake Jack up; saying his name again and again, voice sing-song and as soft as ever. Jack, Jack, Jack, rolling off his tongue like a prayer. And he was touching Jack, running his hands across his chest, dragging gentle nails down his arm. Jack remembered looking up at Davey hovering over him and feeling calm.

Just as Davey was leaning down to kiss him, Jack woke up.

It left him panting, clutching his chest. He felt cold and sweaty and wrong in his skin. Which was stupid, because it hadn’t been a nightmare, had it?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> that was fun! I love spot conlon. follow me on tumlr and reblog the post for this dandy little story if you like, and please please please leave a comment! i thrive off validation, and even though i don't always have time to reply i read and reread and adore every single one <3 hope you all have a fabuloso weekend!


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HI. WOW. IT HASNT BEEN ANOTHER 2 MONTHS OR ANYTHING HAHA WHAT DO U MEAN. time has gone by so fast.  
> but hey, i'm back! we finally receive some closure for a certain eighth grader and jack has an interesting encounter. basically, it is very dramatic, and there are a lot of parallels.  
> enjoy, and i apologize again for my absence!

_"And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees, just as things grow in fast movies, I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer."_ \--F Scott Fitzgerald, _The Great Gatsby_

-

Davey lounged with Crutchie in his classroom after a long day, doing some sleepy-eyed grading. Getting his grades done on campus had become a more regular occurrence since the whole debacle with Jack.

As much as they insisted that things between them were fine, a tension lived on. Davey felt sometimes like they were circling each other in an abandoned boxing ring, both anticipating a hit that was never going to come.

Jack had pulled back of late, but in a strange way. It wasn’t a fear of Davey. It wasn’t about Davey at all, no; it was coming from something within Jack, and Davey could tell that, if nothing else.

Davey just wished he knew what the hell Jack was thinking.

Quite honestly, it had been that way since the moment they met. Jack was incomprehensible to Davey. It was maddening. Yes, it was infuriating, but clearly something in Davey liked the mystery, because he gravitated pathetically toward Jack. He always had.

“I don’t know what to tell you,” Crutchie said, mouth full of one of Davey’s granola bars. “I mean, theoretically, you have all the preventative measures in place. You have a cat. You have a stable career. You have easy access to alcoholic beverages. And yet here you are, taking care of a boy.”

“You’ve been encouraging me this entire time!”

“Yes, to suck his dick. Not soul-search him.” Crutchie shook his head, disavowing the situation. “I can’t believe that after all this, I haven’t even met him.”

“We haven’t had an actual conversation in like a week,” Davey said, running a hand through his hair. It was longer than usual, tickling his forehead in startling places. “I don’t see the point in introducing him.”

“Unimportant. I have to meet the man who’s been putting my best friend through the wringer for like six months.”

“He’s beautiful. That’s all you need to know.” Davey leaned over his desk, buried his face into the sleeve of his sweater, and scrunched his eyes closed until colors started to burst in the blackness. “I want him so bad, Crutchie. God.”

He felt Crutchie’s hand brush gently over his shoulder. It was all there was left to do.

The door creaked open. Smalls poked her head in, hair unkempt and eyes a little bit wild.

“Smalls,” Davey greeted, as brightly as he possibly could. “What do you need?”

“Somewhere to go,” she confessed, voice small. “I don’t… really have anything to work on. Can I just sit?”

“Of course. Always.” Davey made a grand gesture across his brightly decorated classroom in lieu of telling her to pick whichever desk she liked.

Smalls collapsed into a chair, setting down her bag. She immediately took out a pen and began to doodle across the dark skin of her arm. An odd bolt ran through Davey as he watched her, of recognition, of remembrance. 

There were so many people Smalls could be, he thought. But she was just Smalls. And she needed somewhere to go.

-

This particular diner wasn’t a place Smalls usually visited. Today, though, things were bad. Today she wanted--needed--to get out.

She moved to the back of the quaint little place. Quaint it was, with old music bordering on obscure playing overhead as she wove between 70s-style tables. The walls were coated in pictures of old movie stars. Smalls found herself admiring a photo of Audrey Hepburn just behind a gumball machine.

Her eyes moved lower, to the gumballs themselves. She hadn’t had one in as long as she could remember. Without really thinking about it, she pressed a hand to the glass.

Her arm was covered in ink, in makeshift sharpie tattoos. Smalls wanted to cover herself in them one day. Making her body her own would satisfy her beyond measure, would give her a delectably new sensation of ownership.

A man approached her from behind. Smalls turned, rather slowly. Trouble didn’t faze her anymore.

He was a waiter there, as evidenced by the shirt. Underneath the uniform that’d been kept precariously clean, though, was a pair of very ratty Chuck Taylors covered in pen doodles. Smalls looked to his name tag--Jack.

“I like your arms,” he said, and smiled. “Used to do the same thing when I was little.”

“Do you have tattoos?” she asked.

“Yeah. Don’t care for them, though. I didn’t think them through. I want to get more meaningful ones someday.”

Smalls looked at her own arms.

The guy nodded toward the gumball machine. “You need change?”

She was afraid of the answer to that.

-

Jack’s closet was beginning to fill with paintings of Davey.

Painting was what he did. The poor man’s therapy session, right? So when Davey made him feel things that swelled with colors on all ends of every spectrum, Jack just had to make something.

The diner was busy today. Still, Jack was spending his time trying to decide what color Davey made him think of.

There was blue. Deep and mysterious and gentle. Big and frightening and moving in tides, back and forth over and over and over. Constant. Cold. There, present, always. Sad, a little bit. The smell of rain, or the smell of a fresh load of laundry--Davey always made the clothes smell better when he took control of the washing machine. Or maybe the night sky, windblown and sparkling.

Pink was an option; the amicable flush in Davey’s cheeks, the edges around his fingernails when he concentrated too hard and picked at the skin. It wasn’t a deep red, no, it was something sweet and soft and lulling. The color of the pillowcase Jack slept on when he visited Davey’s childhood home, when they shared a bed and the warmth felt right.

And purple, too, the mix of those two things. The synthesis of ocean waves and roses to make something that ached like a bruise in its deepest stage. Something sore that only grew more tender as he listened to Davey hum while cleaning the kitchen or saw him curled up reading on the couch.

Purple reminded Jack of his mother. More specifically, the track marks down her inner arms, violet and gaunt against her dark skin.

At the memory, he shivered and rubbed his own wrists.

Katie always reminded him of yellow. 

It was Jack’s turn to take a register for a bit. He always tended to zone out a little during work, hardly even recognized the faces when he was the one taking orders. When he wasn’t the one writing down the food being ordered he took his chance to study faces, to make mental notes, sometimes even sketch things out on his arms. He loved people-watching under any circumstances but these.

He’d just finished taking down the orders of a giggly couple when a single person stepped up to the plate. Jack wasn’t even looking at him as he recited the generic restaurant spiel asking what he wanted, and then he heard, _“You.”_

That voice. 

It couldn’t be.

Jack stiffened and lifted his head, and he was face to face with Joseph Pulitzer.

“Sir,” was all he managed to say, voice shellshocked. The sight of his face, grisled and angry--and old, so old, had he always looked so old?--had Jack’s legs wobbling.

He was hit with a memory from childhood of the playground near his neighborhood. If you were willing to dodge the drug deals usually going on there, there was good fun to be had. On the monkey bars, he learned how to do a move called “superman”--hooking your ankles over a bar, holding onto another with both hands, and dangling with your belly toward the ground. You couldn’t get down without falling.

Seeing Katherine’s father again had Jack feeling like he was hanging in that position all over again, like he was tiny and needed to get down except the ground below him had split and parted and left a yawning abyss, and all he could do was fall.

And fall.

And fall, and fall.

And fall, and fall, and fall.

He clung to the edge of the greasy counter.

“We got nothing to say,” Jack said, primly, shakily. “Let’s not do this here. What can I get you?”

“You killed my daughter and you think we have nothing to say?” Joseph was angry. It almost radiated from him, his anger. Jack wanted to tell him that he was dying for anger, that he’d been dying for it since he lost Katie. He’d take anger over the grief, the sadness, the _guilt._

God, he would take anything over the guilt.

“I think we’re both hurting.”

“No. You don’t get to do that.” Joseph’s eyes were red and wet. “You have no idea what I’ve gone through. You have no idea what our whole family has gone through because of you.”

Jack’s fingers trembled. He wanted to clock him, slap him, send him reeling.

Once, in a foster home, he punched a hole through the closet door. He was drunk. He was thinking about his mother. He was fifteen.

He was not fifteen anymore.

“I need to ask you to go,” Jack said, voice straining but calm. He was calm. “Order something, or go.”

It happened before Jack could even guess it would. Pulitzer seized him by the front of his shirt, a fistful of cheap fabric, holding their faces devastatingly close. Joseph’s gaze was murderous. “How about we both go?”

Jack forced himself to stay collected. “Outside, so you can beat my ass? Don’t think so.”

Joseph was trying to rile him. “So the jailbird’s cleaned up.” 

Jack wasn’t scared. He could win a match-up between them, he knew he could. He could beat Joseph within an inch of his life if he wanted to. But that wasn’t Jack anymore. He couldn’t go back to all that.

“Maybe, but he still remembers how to paralyze someone with one hit,” Jack replied, voice quiet. “Go, Joseph.”

Everyone had begun to stare at the commotion that had arisen, all too anxious to do anything, as if it might merely be an act or a scene for a movie. A coworker of Jack’s finally noticed and butted in. “Is there a problem here?”

“No,” Jack said, reaching up and plucking Joseph’s hand off of his shirt. He never took his stare off of Joseph. “No problem.”

Joseph looked back at Jack, eyes filled with complication and heat and maybe, just maybe, regret.

“No problem,” Joseph repeated, and he turned, and he left.

-

Medda poked her head into Davey’s classroom during lunch, wielding a purple binder. “David? Smalls left her English binder in choir today. Figured I would just deliver it to you so you can give it to her later.” She set it on his desk. 

“Oh, thank you,” Davey said, letting a finger bump down the disheveled spine of it. The thing bore all the marks of a fidgety eighth grader; rips dragged through the front layer of plastic using a blue pen, little marks carved into it, scribbles across the edges and corners. Davey knew one thing for certain about Smalls: her brain was never idle.

“You gonna stick around?” Davey’s voice sounded kind of pathetic.

Medda offered him a sad smile, leaning against the desk. “Do you want me to?”

“Yes, very much.”

She laughed, but not at him. “I wish I could, sweets, but I have a department meeting. It’s that day of the week.” Medda hugged him and patted his back. “How’s Jack?”

“As gorgeous as ever.”

Medda squeezed him a little harder. “You take care of yourself, David. Take good, good care of yourself.”

Just like that, she was gone. Davey glanced at the closed door she had left behind, and touched Smalls’ binder again, sighing. Without really thinking about what he was doing, he opened it, just looking over the contents.

What he saw astonished him.

The binder was full of assignments. Assignments which were fully done, on time if the dates were true, and never turned in.

Davey picked one up. A vocab sheet. The matching was done perfectly, the sentences written neatly. He picked up another. The outline for an essay. A flawless thesis, excellent transitions, completely different--and better--than the ones he’d helped her craft during their morning tutor sessions.

What?

Davey looked at the spread of papers below him on his desk, feeling his heart twist and squeeze with an intuitive feeling of dread.

He thought back to Smalls’ words from the other morning. _I just need somewhere to go._

She had never needed his tutoring.

The realization knocked the wind out of him. Smalls had never needed his help with English. She was fine at it; she was _good_ at it. Originally, sure, she hadn’t been turning in her work, but it hadn’t been lack of ability. She just hadn’t done it.

She found a feeling of safety and latched onto the hand Davey reached out. Even though she didn’t need it for the academic help it got her, she kept her grip, because she thought it was the only way to keep him close. She wanted him to see her, even if she wasn’t sure that she did.

Davey tucked the papers away and slammed the purple binder shut.

Maybe she had wanted him to find it. Maybe she hadn’t. But he had, and now he had a binder full of finished work filled to the brim between the lines of that loopy, juvenile handwriting. What he was going to do next, he didn’t know.

-

Jack was still shaking when he got home. It was a Saturday, so Luna and Davey were both already at home. His expression must have been transparently disturbed, because Davey’s eyebrows creased when he entered the kitchen. “Jack? Are you okay?”

Jack glanced to Luna. She was in her high chair, holding a pacifier, eyes focused excitedly on Jack. “Papi,” she said eagerly.

Luna had no idea what Jack had done. Neither did Davey. That was why they loved him. It had to be.

“Hi, baby,” Jack said quietly, and the tears came before he could even try to swallow them.

“Jack,” Davey repeated in alarm, coming out from behind the counter. “Are you okay?”

Jack shook his head pathetically and fell into Davey’s arms. And he felt guilty, dirty, criminal for it. He used to fall into Katherine’s arms this way. He was pretending both she and Davey were the other, wasn’t he? He was disgracing them. He was taking all they had to offer and leaving them stranded, like a leech, like leaving a lightbulb on all night and burning it out.

Davey was clearly confused, even a little scared, but he rubbed Jack’s back and shushed him.

Jack sunk to his knees. Davey followed him, and there they were, on the tile.

And that. That was it. Davey was so good. He shouldn’t end up with someone like Jack.

Katie had been so good, too. Joseph had been right. She shouldn’t have ended up with someone like Jack.

Davey cradled him. Jack was sprawled on his knees, the noises leaving him primal, guttural, wounded. He just sobbed and sobbed, Pulitzer’s face flashing through his mind, Katie’s face flashing through his mind. He hated making Davey see him this way.

“Jack,” Davey said when Jack was beginning to choke on his own cries. “You gotta calm down. You gotta breathe.”

He forcibly pulled back, holding Jack’s face in both of his hands, gazing at him like he was something wild. “Did something happen?”

“I saw… at work…” Jack wiped his eyes with the heels of his hands. “At work, I saw Katie’s dad. He came up to me. Said all this... shit.” His breaths were still hiccuping.

Davey’s eyes were wide, as sweet as ever. “Jack... Fuck, I’m so sorry.”

Jack pulled back from Davey like they were both being burned, sitting down hard on the tile beside him as he continued to wipe his eyes. “No,” he said, “I’m sorry.”

Davey blinked. “About what?”

“For… this, for cryin’ in front of you.” Jack was trembling. “For everything.”

“Papi?” Luna said from her high chair.

Davey and his soft hands. Davey and his worried eyes. Davey and his collarbones that smelled like citrus lotion, Davey and his oversized sweatshirts, Davey and his hesitant smiles, Davey and his tendency to sway back and forth when he was nervous. Jack just couldn’t shake the feeling that he was going to ruin him, blemish him.

“You don’t have anything to be sorry for.” Davey smiled, hands tucked in his lap. “You had a shit day. I get it. Emotions happen, and honestly, Jack, you just gotta let ‘em.” He blushed a little. “Not to sound like your friendly neighborhood therapist or anything.”

Jack sighed shakily. “I’m just… tired.”

“I’d be tired too.” Davey patted Jack’s extended leg. Jack resisted the urge to push him away.

They stayed on the kitchen floor a while longer. There was something comforting about the change in perspective.

-

Davey got Jack to go to bed early that night, sleep off the hysteria of the day. As soon as he and Luna were asleep in their dark room, Davey wandered back into the kitchen.

He paced back and forth across the tile. Davey had his own hysteria that he wasn’t sure what to do with. In fact, he’d been planning to ask Jack for advice, but it’d have to wait.

He had gone to his higher-ups at the school, principal included, about Smalls, wondering if he should call Child Protective Services. They had demanded to know if Davey had proof; Davey said nothing concrete besides some bruises, and Smalls didn’t have bruises at the moment as far as he knew. Then he’d asked if Davey was one hundred percent sure something was going on; Davey hesitantly said no. All in all, Davey was pretty much told to leave it be.

“Can’t I lose my job if something is going on and I don’t report it?” he’d questioned.

“You can also lose your job if you report parents who have done nothing wrong,” had been the answer. “This isn’t a game.”

Davey, who was admittedly something of a pushover, had decided that he would just take that lying down. Maybe they were right. Maybe he was seeing things, maybe it wasn’t his business, maybe it wasn’t his decision to make.

But then Jack came home crying.

Jack, who reminded him of Smalls. Jack, who had no family, not even the one who tried to make for himself. Jack, who lost everything growing up and was still losing things because of that. 

It filled Davey with a protective fire unlike any other. He wanted to do all he could to preserve Smalls from all the things Jack had seen in his life. He _had_ to do all he could.

Could he do this? What if he just wrecked things for Smalls beyond measure? What if her father was trying his best?

If only Jack were awake.

And then Davey realized there was somebody else he could ask for help--somebody only ten feet and a staircase away.

-

“Jesus Christ,” Spot muttered, rubbing the back of his neck.

Davey had presented the Smalls case to him (and Race) over their coffee table, all of them clutching a diet Pepsi. The two had been engaged in Halo, but seemed willing enough to talk with Davey when he came to their door at seven pm, almost in tears.

“That principal of yours doesn’t know shit,” Race said passionately from a room away as he cleaned the kitchen. “Or school board, or whoever you went to. I don’t care who it is, they don’t know shit.”

“So you think I should report to CPS, then?”

“Yes!” Spot and Race said in unison.

Davey was surprised by their conviction. “This sounds like enough?”

“She’s coming to school with bruises. She’s dropping hints to you, walking like half an hour every morning in the freezing cold because she wants to get out of her house so bad. Something is going on, Davey,” Spot said. “Take it from somebody who’s been crazy at some point in time. Where I grew up I saw shit like that at school all the time. You know, before I dropped out. My parents are angels, I got lucky.”

“Really?” Davey asked, brow creasing.

“Kids were shooting up with their parents at eleven, twelve, thirteen. Kids comin’ to school pregnant. Gangs. Yeah.” Spot just looked so sad. “It’s horrifying what kids go through. Especially when they’re poor. _Espeluznante.”_ He looked at Davey seriously. “You gotta call.”

“I’m just so… I don’t know,” Davey said.

“Worst case scenario, you look like an idiot,” Spot said, finishing off his Pepsi. “Best case, you save that little girl’s life.”

-

Davey was teaching his seventh period class when one of the counselors came to the door. All the students turned.

“Lauren?” asked the counselor in a gentle voice.

The breath caught in Davey’s chest. Time to reap what he had sown, see how much he was going to pay for it. 

“That’s me,” said Smalls, looking nervous.

“You aren’t in trouble.” The counselor looked to Davey. “Can I just borrow her for a second?”

Davey nodded. “Yes, of course.” He tried to make eye contact with Smalls before she left, but he wasn’t sure it landed. He cleared his throat, then addressed his class, which had begun to chatter softly. “Alright, alright, refocus.”

-

It was a few days before Davey saw Smalls again, and with each day, his worry grew.

But then one morning the door to his classroom burst open. It was her.

Davey shot to his feet. “Smalls? Are you okay?”

She didn’t answer him, not exactly. “You called,” she said. “Didn’t you?”

“Yes,” Davey answered. A lump grew in his throat. “I’m so sorry I didn’t do it sooner, Smalls.”

She said nothing. She just ran to his desk and hugged him hard. Davey let out a startled noise, and his hand hovered with uncertainty over her before he let it gently clutch at her back, reciprocating in his awkward touch-starved way.

“Thank you,” Smalls said passionately, face pressed against his jacket. She pulled back and smiled up at him. “I couldn’t have had the courage to.”

“Where are you staying now?” He leaned against his desk.

Smalls’ smile grew. “They’re letting me live with Medda. She has her foster license, and offered to take me in.”

An overjoyed laugh burst out of Davey, so brightly even he was startled by it. “That’s incredible. I’m glad.”

Smalls hugged him again. “Thank you,” she repeated, voice a whisper this time.

Neither of them could really believe it, so they spent a while in that English classroom just basking in it. Smalls had been rescued, and Davey had inspired her safety. Spot flashed through Davey’s mind, and then Esther, and then Jack, because it was always Jack. But here, right in front of him, was Smalls, already glowing in a brand new way.

“You know,” he said, “I saw your binder. I know you never really needed my help.”

Smalls’ cheeks flushed.

“But you don’t have to need it,” Davey insisted. “You can come visit me whenever you like, Smalls, I mean it. I’m always here for you.”

“Thank you,” she said. She’d said it so many times already, but was there really anything more to say? He needed to know.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SMALLS GETS HER HAPPY ENDING! or at least, the start of it. and don't worry, she's not going anywhere; she's still gonna be an important character. let me know what you thought, please! i thrive off feedback. hope you liked and i will hopefully see you again sooner than 2 months. i still cant believe its already been 2 months. we're all dying.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HI. SORRY. life's been really hard the past month, and honest to god, i thought that i'd be able to get this updated a week after the last chapter, but everything got really hard really fast. i apologize.  
> anyway, here's this! 4000 words of nothing but davey on jack action. that sounds weird. it's not sex I swear.  
> but i don't think anyone's quite expecting what happens >:3. enjoy!

_“I will wear him_  
_in my heart’s core, ay, in my heart of heart.”_ \--William Shakespeare, _Hamlet_

-

Jack was out of art supplies again. Davey woke up from a nap on the couch after school to find the man at the table with Luna, who was sporting only a diaper and lots of paint splotches. Jack was playing with her, collar of his loose paint shirt spilling over his collarbones as he tickled her and dotted her nose with paint. Her giggles, as explosive as her father’s, floated over to Davey on the sofa.

Davey hauled himself to his feet and headed over to Jack. “Whatcha working on?”

“Buenos días,” he sang teasingly. “Oh, nothing, I started on a painting but I got no paint to finish it. I’m just entertaining the monster.” He poked Luna’s tummy.

“You’re already out of paint again?” 

Jack seemed abashed. “Yeah. Guess I’ve been paintin’ a lot lately. But don’t worry about it. I’ll manage.”

“You martyr, you,” Davey said, watching Jack pick Luna up and kiss her hair. It was still downy and short, pulled into two tiny pigtails atop her head. “Hey, you know, I could grab you some more from the art room. It’s not a problem.”

Jack, who had begun to whistle an unfamiliar nursery rhyme to Luna, looked to Davey. “Are you sure? You already did that for me once. I don’t want you getting in no trouble for me.”

“It’s not a problem,” Davey assured.

“I just feel bad. I can come with you? That way I can take the fall if ya need,” Jack said. “Yeah. I’m insistin’ on it. I’ll feel terrible if I just let you put out your neck for me, knowing about it. Plus, I can pick out exactly what I need. And besides, I ain’t seen your work before. I’m interested to see where you spend your days.”

Davey chuckled. “Sounds like you’re crafting an argumentative essay.”

“I’m serious, Dave. I don’t wanna let you do it alone. C’mon. Throw me a bone. Lemme feel useful.”

Davey sighed softly, leaning on the edge of the table as he watched Jack continue to clean up. “Yeah, sure, you can come. You’re too generous, you know that?”

“Just trying to keep myself out of the last few circles of hell.”

“Didn’t know you were familiar with Dante’s concept of it.”

Jack chuckled a little, carrying his red solo cup of paint water over to the sink. “Mm. Katie loved her books, just like you do. Well read. Inferno was one of the few I actually read, just ‘cuz it interested me. Hell. It’s weird to think about.” He looked away, seeming to realize he was talking too much for his liking. “Anyway.”

“Anyway,” Davey repeated, sensing that Jack wanted to change the subject. His eyes darted to the half-finished painting on the table. “Saturday. We’ll plan on it? Nobody should really be there.”

“Yeah, that works.” Jack smiled. “You’re good to me, Dave.”

Davey smiled back. He released a heavy sigh that he didn’t realize had gathered in his chest.

-

Davey felt lighter after he knew Smalls had been set free. It seemed to show outwardly, in fact, because Jack noticed.

“You look happy,” Jack noted as he emerged into the kitchen and found Davey dancing his way through rinsing off the dishes.

Davey smiled, a little abashed. “Sorry. Am I blinding you with my sun rays?”

“No, no, I like it.” Jack came closer, standing at Davey’s side. It surprised Davey; he was reminded of when they’d first moved in together. He didn’t think Jack had come this close to him since the infamous kiss. Davey looked to him, and was surprised to find Jack already looking back.

Davey blushed and lowered his gaze.

“Want some help?” Jack asked, already reaching out for a plate in the sink.

“Yeah. Sure.” Davey’s voice was a little too pitchy as he tried to hide his confused joy.

They worked in silence for a couple minutes. Side by side.

“So, you gonna tell me what’s got you so happy?” Jack’s voice was almost flirty, and it caught Davey off guard yet again. “Is it me? I’m having a good hair day.”

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” Davey said, and laughed when Jack let out an offended scoff. “Kidding. Well, sure, your hair does look really nice, and that’s boosted my spirits.”

“Thanks. Started using Pantene conditioner.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah. High end.” Jack’s grin was crooked.

Davey’s head spun. Was this flirting? Was Jack flirting with him? 

He realized something as he went to answer the question about his mood for real: he had never told Jack about Smalls. It was a strange epiphany. The beast he’d battled for months now and finally laid to rest didn’t even exist in the world of Jack Kelly. For some reason, it distressed Davey so much that he found himself opening his mouth and beginning the story.

He wanted them to exist in the same world.

Really, he did.

“I had this girl in one of my classes,” Davey started. “She was exhibiting some red flags. Not turning stuff in, bruises, getting defensive when I asked her about home. I called CPS and she was placed in a really good foster home. With one of my friends, actually.” He glanced to Jack again, and his voice softened on its own accord. “I’m just really happy I managed to rescue her, I guess.”

Jack’s smile was sweet, but a little achy. “That was good of you.” He picked up Luna’s signature sippy cup to rinse. “I wish sometimes people had seen the signs when I was a kid. You know, it makes me wonder how things may have turned out if I’d been rescued sooner. I guess there’s some things people don’t wanna see.” He looked right into Davey’s eyes. “You’re a good man. I hope ya know that, Dave.”

Davey’s chest fluttered. “That means the world, coming from you.”

Jack smiled, a full-on Jack Kelly smile, toothy and sweet and taking about five years off of his actual age. Davey hadn’t seen one in a while. Not since the kiss.

Which reminded him…

They stood for a moment with the running water the only sound between them. Davey gathered his words in the reprieve. 

“Is this…” Davey sighed through his nose. “What are we? I’m glad you're more comfortable around me, Jack, but I don’t want to be led on.”

Jack appeared a little abashed, a little surprised, but then he bit his lip. Clearly he understood why--and what--Davey was asking. “I been… figurin’ some stuff out, about myself. Like maybe I’m not as straight as I thought. Did you mean what you said the other night? When you got home from that date of yours… you said… you love me.” Jack looked at Davey. “Did you mean that?”

“I did,” Davey said quietly. He sighed. “Shit, Jack, I really did. And I wish I didn’t.”

He wanted Jack to scold him for his language. He wanted to hear Jack say it would influence Luna, with those laughter lines of his all on show.

Jack didn’t. 

“I don’t wanna lead you on,” Jack repeated. “This is all just a lot for me. And… then there’s Katie.”

“Katie,” Davey repeated. The dishes were done. They had no reason to still be leaning over the sink.

But they didn’t move.

“She’s gone.” Jack sounded sad, but not hollow. “And you’re here.”

Davey pushed himself up from the sink and walked away, over to the fridge. Then he turned around and looked back at Jack. “Forgive me for being careful,” he said. “I just--I don’t want to be a rebound, or... a gay experiment.”

Jack didn’t say anything.

Davey sighed. “I just… I think that this is a thing of circumstance. I think that I’ve been deprived of love, and you miss the love you used to have, and we’re cramped up together in this little apartment and by force you’ve become my best friend and we’re just starved for…” he trailed off as Jack came close to him again, then finished, “...more.”

“So what’re you saying?” Jack asked.

He looked so beautiful under the kitchen lights. God, the kitchen lights were hideous and yellow and dingy, and Jack still looked like an angel.

Davey placed his hand in the center of Jack’s chest. It wasn’t quite muscular, but still solid. “I don’t know,” he sighed, biting his lip, looking to the side to avoid Jack’s gaze. “I don’t want either of us to get hurt.”

“Well, that’s the price of loving someone. I been paying it with interest for years now.” This time it was Jack who turned and walked away.

Davey cradled the hand that had fallen from his chest. “That’s why I want to be careful.”

“Like this is about me at all.”

Davey was startled by the harsh words.

Then it turned into anger. 

“What the hell are you talking about? Like I haven’t been waiting for you all this time. Like I didn’t pull back right away and even offer to let you leave when you said you were straight. Jack, open your eyes. All I’ve ever done is make allowances for you.”

“Aside from going on a date with someone else.”

“That’s not fair.”

“I don’t run from what I’m feeling. I never have. And even now, you want to. Life’s too short to spend all your time worryin’ about heartbreak.” Jack had had his back turned on Davey thus far, and he finally turned around. “Maybe you should think about why you’ve never had a long-term relationship.”

Davey scowled. “Maybe you should think about why you need to take personal jabs at me.”

Jack said nothing.

Davey came closer. “Don’t you dare try to pin this all on me. If anything, blame us both. Everything’s complicated. And after you burned me, you can’t blame me for being cautious of you.”

Now, Jack looked more like a kicked puppy. “I didn’t mean to burn you.”

“Well, you did,” Davey said, shaking his head. “You did. Okay?” He turned around and stalked out of the kitchen. “I have papers to grade.”

-

Davey didn’t sleep well that night. It made the world feel off kilter to be angry at Jack and know Jack was angry at him. He had the feeling that if they were to separate, the universe would just rip in half. He wished the universe wasn’t so fragile.

The next morning, Friday, Davey woke up before his alarm to a soft knocking on his door. 

Jack stepped in, looking hesitant. “Dave?”

Oh, great.

Davey sat up blearily, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. “Jack. What is it? Did I oversleep?”

“No, no. I’m waking you up a little early, ‘cuz, uh, I wanted to apologize.” Jack perched himself on the edge of Davey’s bed, fidgeting with his hands. “I shouldn’t have said the things I said yesterday. I just… I got angry, and scared, and so I lashed out.”

Davey bit his lip. “I appreciate the apology,” he said. “I’m sorry too.”

Jack’s smile was brittle. “Okay. Well, I just… wanted to tell you that.” He patted Davey’s leg through the blanket, scanned over his face for a second, then stood up. “I, uh… I gotta get going soon. Have a good day, okay? I’ll see you later.”

The door shut softly behind him.

Davey flopped back down into his pillows. “See you,” he muttered, even though Jack was gone.

-

“This is crazy.”

“You made me bring you along.”

“I know, but it’s still crazy. I feel like a crook.”

“It’s for a good cause,” Davey answered Jack, flicking on the lights of the school art room.

Jack’s laugh had a nervous air. “I wouldn’t call my scribbles a good cause.”

It was Saturday, and he’d driven Jack to the school to get the supplies--Jack insisted on tagging along, said he’d feel bad if he didn’t. Luna had been left with Spot and Race in order for them to complete their mission successfully. After the argument they’d had, Davey was in no kind of mood to help Jack steal art supplies. However, he had made a promise, and technically they’d apologized, so really he had no excuse not to. 

The curse of loving Jack Kelly.

Davey led the way over to the closet he and Charlie had gone into to fetch Jack’s previous art supplies, looking over his shoulder one last time before he pushed in the right key from Medda’s ring.

If he and Charlie had been impressed by the closet, Jack was enraptured by it. Little fires burned in his big brown eyes as he looked around at the endless materials. 

“I ain’t even ever used some of this stuff,” Jack said almost breathlessly, taking down a box of oil pastels and running delicate fingers over the small colorful sticks. 

“Well,” Davey said curtly, walking further into the closet and spinning around to face Jack, “help yourself.” He took down a pack of brushes. “God knows the teacher doesn’t use any of it. Just be quick about it.”

Jack shook his head, having taken out one of the oil pastels out to examine it. “Normally I could never steal from children, but art makes me into a monster.”

He swept up bottles of acrylic paint for the primary colors, then the secondary, then a black and a white. Davey had a reusable grocery bag handy for all that he wanted. Despite being angry at him, Davey couldn’t help watching adoringly as Jack muttered pretty unintelligibly to himself.

“My brushes are fine, I got purple paint from Christmas. Will I use charcoal? I’ll take one. Nice for sketches. Pencils, nah. I’m dying to use these oil things. And chalk. But if I get chalk I’ll want black paper…”

Wordlessly, Jack wandered past Davey out of the closet. There, right there, that was some more proof that things just weren’t quite right with them. All the wordless movements. They had apologized, sure, but clearing the air at the surface didn’t do shit when there was so much underneath. After a pause to gather his bearings and then a sigh, Davey followed him out into the art room.

Instead of leaving like Davey thought he would be (and like he really should be), Jack was standing hunched over at a table in the back of the art room.

“What’re you doing?” Davey questioned, annoyed. Jack didn’t answer, which made him even more annoyed, and he wandered closer. “Jack. We need to go.”

“Just a second,” Jack replied. “Jeez, calm down. I’m just testing some of the paints. Wanna see if they’re any good.”

“Come on. Can paint even be no good?”

“Can you even get off my dick for two seconds?” Jack retorted. 

Davey was so startled by the rudeness that he was silenced for a moment, eyes wandering down to the piece of paper Jack had grabbed off the floor and was now painting on. “Sorry. God.”

This time Jack didn’t respond, just continuing to silently and resolutely paint. That was it, yeah, Jack painted with passion and discipline, like it was simply what he was put on earth to do. Maybe it was, Davey reflected as he watched Jack’s eyes glint with concentration. Even when he was angry with Jack, he couldn’t seem to take off the rose-tinted glasses.

How infuriating.

“I didn’t think I would ever love anyone else after Katie,” Jack said. Davey looked up to his face, surprised to hear him speak, but Jack’s eyes remained fixed on his piece of paper, on his purposeful brush strokes. “I was gonna marry her. I said to her once, I really said, that when all the stars burn out, I’ll still love you. Only you.”

Davey didn’t say anything.

“And then I lost her.” Jack’s brush started to move in rapid swirls, eyebrows furrowing. “I lost her, and I was alone in the world with a baby girl. Alone on my knees. I looked at Luna in her crib and hated her. I stopped going to work. I couldn’t. I got fired ‘cuz I stopped showin’ up. When I finally hauled my ass outta bed I couldn’t find anything else that didn’t pay above the very minimum of minimum wage.” He retracted the paint brush, dunked it into water, and picked up another, all angrily. “And then you showed up.

“My landlord came over, says he’s gonna throw me out if I can’t make rent. I owed him a shit ton of money by that point. Tried to explain, he didn’t care. I got desperate, and joined that roommates site. And then I saw it, your name, David Jacobs. I sent in an application thing.”

“I remember,” Davey said quietly.

Jack didn’t even seem to have heard him. “I didn’t think there was any chance for me after I fucked everything up when we first met up. I thought--” he broke off, lips trembling a little. “That night after we met, I thought about giving Luna up. Shit, I didn’t want to, by then she was my... shining star in the sky.” He gestured weakly upward toward the heavens, the crown Luna sat in among Jack’s consciousness. “But that was it. I loved her so much I was willing to let her go if it meant somebody could take care of her better. Nobody could ever love her better than me, no, but other people could buy her things, put a roof over her head. I wanted her to have a better life than me.”

Jack changed brushes again. This time he began to splatter yellow across the paper, bright and vicious and brilliant.

“And then you called me.”

Davey remembered that phone call. He remembered his own desperation that had driven him to make it. But God, what did he have to be desperate for? Jack’s life had almost fallen apart, and Davey had given him the glue he needed.

That was such a heavy realization that Davey’s vision began to tunnel, as if he’d gotten up too fast.

“I’m glad I did,” Davey whispered. And that was true.

At the same time, overlapping those words, Jack said, “You saved me. Rescued my sorry ass from becoming what my mama was.” His strokes grew angrier. “The more I got to know you, the more I wanted what you had. A job you like. Nice family, a home to go back to. Good friends. You’re fine with liking dudes. I wanted all that. And I tried to tell myself that was it, that I was jealous. But you know what? I’m in love with you. And I’m so mad.”

Davey’s chest rattled. “Jack, I--”

“Do you not get that?” Jack demanded, voice raw with emotion. He whipped toward Davey, in the process accidentally swiping his yellow-covered paintbrush across Davey’s arm. Davey breathed in sharply, surprised by the coldness.

Jack stopped, looking at the smudge of yellow. Something flashed in his eyes; his entire body was shaking.

And then he dipped the paintbrush in more paint. He lifted it to Davey’s face, streaking yellow all over him. “I fell in love with you. I don’t know how. But I did. And I hate myself for it.”

Davey spluttered, flinching away. “Jack! What the fuck!”

“No, no. I need you to be yellow.” Jack let out a frustrated noise. “I just need you to…”

Davey’s eyes widened as he watched him, trying to keep up, unable. He needed _Davey_ to be what he wanted? His own anger reared up.

Jack dipped his brush in more paint and moved toward Davey. Davey hurriedly reached over to one of the gallons of paint on the table, each fixed with a hand pump on top for students. He filled his hand with blue paint. When Jack came toward him, Davey pushed him away, printing his shirt blue. 

Jack yelped, swiped up some of the thick handprint, and went at Davey, and suddenly they were wrestling.

They tussled standing up, each trying to get the upper hand. When he got close enough, Davey began to just streak his stained hands down Jack’s face and shirt and neck, coloring him blue. 

“I fell in love with you first!” Davey yelled, dodging a sling of red paint coming his way. “And you think I don’t hate myself for it? I fell in love with you and kissed you--shit!” He gasped, broken off as Jack reached to the side and grabbed for some green from one of the pumps, then slopped it down Davey’s chest. 

“And then what? You ran away from it! From all of it! You ran away from _me_!” Jack streaked his multicolored hands all over Davey’s face. 

They broke apart for a second. 

Davey snatched up some more blue paint and shouted, “You _told_ me to!” as he charged at Jack again.

Jack received him with what could be called open arms. They continued their awkward battle, just trying to get each other as colorful as possible, just splattering out all the anger, all the feelings, until Davey’s foot caught one of the nearby table legs. He grabbed instinctively at Jack, shouting out in alarm as he took the man down to the floor with him.

The ground was concrete, designed to be stained. Together, Davey and Jack fell hard and ungracefully.

They both stopped moving. Jack was practically in Davey’s lap, each of them sitting up, still in the dim art room.

Jack shifted, looking down at Davey. It was too dark for Davey to quite see his expression.

The anger was still clawing viciously at Davey’s insides, demanding to be let out more and more the longer he looked into Jack’s dark eyes. His beautiful eyes. Jack was so beautiful. 

And Davey was so mad--

So sad--

So in love--

Feeling so much he was going to burst with it--

He grabbed Jack’s face and kissed him.

He pulled his head down from where he was clumsily piled on top of Davey’s legs and connected their lips. It was undignified and messy and they were both holding onto each other far, far too tight. Their lips moved like they were hungry for it, and Davey felt Jack settle into the rhythm of push and pull and it made his heart sway, made him feel hot and dizzy like he was in the midst of a head rush.

Jack pulled back first.

Davey blinked up at him, cold wave of terror immediately rushing back in. As Jack prepared to speak, Davey held his breath. He prepared himself for rejection, for insults, for anything to break his heart even more than Jack Kelly had already broken it.

Jack said, “You taste like paint.”

Davey grinned.

“Davey--” Jack started, looking down and away.

Which was when they heard the back door rattle.

Both of them froze.

It rattled again, the sound of a key struggling in a lock, and now they were scrambling to stand up. “You said he wasn’t going to be here!” Jack hissed, grabbing for his bag of stolen supplies.

Davey was positively frantic. “I thought he wasn’t!”

Jack grabbed Davey’s hand. Both of them were still coated in paint. “Come on!” he whisper-shouted, yanking Davey toward the front door as the back one started to open.

Davey snatched up Medda’s keys from the desk as they whizzed past it. Jack flung himself against the door to open it and they sprinted like hell into the hallway. As they ran, stumbling, leaving random prints of paint in their wake, refusing to let of each other’s hands even though it was undoubtedly the most reasonable thing to do, Davey began to laugh. 

By the time they burst out into the sunlight, both of them were cackling.. 

Jack stopped running and turned around. The moment he caught sight of Davey he was laughing again, throwing his head back and letting loose one of those Jack Kelly firecracker laughs.

“You look insane,” Jack wheezed, and Davey was bent over too, laid out by the sight of Jack looking like some kind of crazed rainbow monster.

A crazed rainbow monster who he’d just kissed. 

“We need to--one of my coworkers is going to see us,” Davey panted, reaching up and grappling at Jack’s solid shoulder for a hold to straighten himself up. He grinned as soon as they were at eye level again, and his voice became something softer. He didn’t know what would happen now, what he and Jack were going to be. But they loved each other. They did. 

“Let’s go home,” Davey said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WOOOMP THERE IT IS!!!!!!!  
> leave me ur comments! questions! concerns! what do you think is in store! is the slow burn finally over!  
> i should add that the paint scene was partly inspired by girl meets world. i can't lie.  
> (by the way, this will have an estimated 16 chapters. could be more, could be less. not sure yet. we will see.) thank u for readng, follow my tumblr its livingchancy, rb the psot for this, PLEASE leave me a comment, im so fucking tired. good night.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HELLO HI HOLA ITS ME. after another two months, an update! i marvel at anyone who's still keeping up with this fic at this point. i am also incredibly grateful. thank you so much if you haven't given up on me. school took ALL my time, but i'm officially on summer break! writing time! blue moon's gonna be finished soon--i'm planning for 2 more chapters, both of which i will probably be able to write promptly now that i have the time.  
> jack and davey just kissed, in case you forgot! here they are, navigating their new relationship and making some... interesting and quite impulsive decisions. enjoy

_“Every atom of your flesh is as dear to me as my own: in pain and sickness it would still be dear.”_ \--Charlotte Brontë, _Jane Eyre_

-

They were still laughing when they got home. The seats of Jack’s car were now stained with paint, but he didn’t seem to mind. He said they already were.

Jack carried in his stolen art supplies while Davey fetched Luna from Spot and Race’s apartment.

He knocked, and the door swung open after a long pause. Spot stood there with huge eyes and a slightly afraid smile on his face. “What the hell happened to you?”

“Paint fight in a school art room.” Davey reached up and touched his face. Most of the paint had dried, but some damp spots remained. He couldn’t imagine what kind of beast he must look like. “I promise I’m the real Davey. You can hose me down if you need.”

“And you’re not fired?”

Davey laughed some more as he recalled the sudden intruder that had forced he and Jack to run for their lives that, in hindsight, was probably just a janitor. “Almost.”

Spot raised his eyebrows as he handed the toddler over into Davey’s arms. “Day,” she said, flapping her small arms, open-mouthed smile on her face.

Davey smiled at her. “Yes, hi, Luna.” He looked at Spot. “Thank you for watching her. I’ll explain myself later. Promise.”

“You better. She cried the whole damn time! Just wanted her papi. Monstruita.” Spot shook his head, but his eyes were filled with jest. “I’ll see you. Get cleaned up soon. You’re so pale I’m afraid you’ll be stained forever if you don’t.”

Davey waved. Luna copied him, and continued waving at nothing as he carried her down the stairs. 

When he re-entered their apartment, all he heard was the sound of water running. Jack must be in the bathroom, he thought. Sure enough, Davey found him standing by the sink, using an old towel to scrub his face. He’d already taken his shirt off. This time, Davey didn’t try to look away from his chest.

Luna’s reaction to seeing her father was joyous; she squealed and wiggled in Davey’s arms, and this finally drew Jack’s attention away from the mirror to his roommate and baby.

“Chiquita!” Jack said in a playful voice, clearly just as happy to see her. He took her from Davey and set her on the bathroom counter in front of him, holding her tiny hands. “Mi vida, mi cielita, mi luz. No, no, estoy sucio. I shouldn’t hold you right now.”

“Papi sooso,” Luna said, and smiled wildly when Jack praised her, flapping her arms.

“That’s right! Muy sucio.” He grinned a little at Davey. “So is Day. Geez. We’re idiots. I set a towel down for you right there. Made sure not to use your white ones.” He shifted aside a little to let Davey stand at the sink with him.

Davey’s eyes widened when he faced himself in the mirror. “No wonder Spot was scared.”

Jack laughed, one of those firecracker laughs, and started to scrub his face again. “Jesus. It’s even in my hair. You got me good.”

“You deserved it.”

Jack laughed again, and Davey smiled. He wetted his own towel and went to work on himself.

They helped each other get cleaned up after the worst was gone, Davey removing the paint from the back of Jack’s neck and between his shoulder blades. And when Jack did the same to him, Davey tried to ignore how it made his stomach flutter as if he weren’t fully grown.

“God, you’re really pale, you know that? We need to get you out in the sun.” All the same, Jack pressed a kiss to the back of Davey’s shoulder when he was done.

Luna watched the whole time, holding her stuffed caterpillar.

Jack got into the shower still wearing his old jeans, saying they were just as coated in paint so they could use a wash. He took them off once the curtain was closed. Davey sat on the closed lid of the toilet seat, holding Luna in his lap. There was a long period of silence as Davey watched the steam drift above the curtain rod. But he had to break it eventually.

“Jack?”

It took a moment, but sung playfully above the din of the shower spray, “Yes?”

“What are we?” Davey asked.

That inspired another long period of silence.

“What do you want to be?” Jack said.

Davey bit the inside of his cheek. “I don’t know. But I want to kiss you more.”

“I want to kiss you more, too.”

“But I don’t want something temporary, Jack.” Davey sighed. His lungs felt like lead. “I… I love you too much for that. So if you aren’t sure you want me, I’d rather you leave now. Spare me a little pain, at least.”

The water switched off. Davey held his breath.

Jack poked his head out from behind the plastic curtain, eyes sparkling and resolute. “I’m sure I want you,” he said.

Davey stood up (setting Luna back on the counter), held Jack’s chin gently, and kissed him on the cheek. He felt water drops from the shower dampen his mouth. He pulled back with a hand still on Jack’s face and studied him.

Jack broke into a smile. “Yeah, that.”

“What?”

“How could I not want you when you look at me like that?” Jack placed his own hand over Davey’s. “I’d just be stupid.”

There was a loud baby noise from behind them, and both of them turned toward Luna. She kicked her legs, babbling some more. Davey laughed. “I don’t think she likes me having all your attention,” he said. He tossed Jack a towel and headed over to the toddler, ready to soothe.

Jack emerged once he’d fastened his towel around his waist. He held out his arms, showing off his chest. “Did I get most of the paint?”

“No. Still got some on your chin. But I appreciate the display.” Davey smiled at him wryly and carried Luna out of the bathroom.

Davey showered next while Jack whipped up some dinner for them. As he let the water roll over him, his mind ran in circles. Jack Kelly related circles, mostly. Davey had wanted him for so long, and now he had him. He had a chance and he had to make sure he didn’t blow it.

They sat at the table and ate together, like they often did. Jack fed Luna in between eating his own food.

“So we’re together now,” Davey said.

Jack looked to him. “I guess we are, yeah.”

“You know you’re ready?”

Jack nodded, once. “I’ve never wanted anything more.”

“So what does being together entail, for us?”

“Uh…” Jack pursed his lips. “I dunno. Are there rules?”

“No,” Davey said, and it was a surprisingly powerful thing for him to say. “We make the rules.”

“So we kiss,” Jack said. “Whenever we want to.”

“You can sleep in my bed. Finally get off of the floor. Luna’s welcome too.”

They looked at each other for a second. Davey was pretty sure that they realized in unison how little was actually going to change.

“I guess we’ve been in love for a while,” Jack said.

-

The second he got to school on Monday morning, Davey ran (jogged) to Medda’s choir room. To his surprise, Buttons was already in there; she turned around along with Charlie and Medda when he burst in through the door.

“Dave? You alright?” Charlie asked. He had been given a full update after the date with Spot, presumably from both of them--although as far as Davey knew, Spot still hadn’t spoken up about his feelings for Charlie. Davey really needed to pester him about that some more.

“You look flushed,” Medda agreed, briefly touching her own cheeks as if Davey’s hysteria may be contagious.

Davey grinned. “I have good news.”

“About…?”

“Jack.”

“Oh, like he’s leaving?” Medda said.

Davey huffed.

She put her hands up. “Sorry. I figured that could be the only good news about him at this point.”

“Or he looked at you for more than five seconds yesterday?” Buttons proposed.

Davey scowled. “What? No!”

She shrugged. “I thought we were just taking crumbs at this point.”

“No! Me time.” Davey wandered closer, already prepared with the theatrics. “We kissed. Again. And it was good this time.”

Buttons surged right out of her seat, eyes glowing. “Seriously?!” 

Davey received her when she threw herself at him in a hug, both of them laughing. “I know!”

Charlie was grinning too. “What changed his mind?”

Davey shrugged, still letting Buttons lean on him and lightly sway them back and forth. “I don’t know, really. I haven’t asked him in detail. He said he’s just worked through some things, and that he’s… willing to give this a try.” 

Charlie squealed some more. Medda still looked cautious, so Davey approached her, gently releasing the librarian. “Medda, I promise I’m being careful. I’ve talked to him a lot, and I’m going to talk to him some more. I said that if he doesn’t really want me, he needs to go. He said he does.”

Medda sighed, shaking her head a little. “If you believe him, baby. I just love you. And we all know this boy has put you through the ringer already.”

“And whose fault is that?” Charlie said. Davey stuck out his tongue at him.

“You are aware that now we have to meet him, right?” Buttons queried.

Davey put his hands on his hips. “I am aware. I’m counting on the idea that you’ll all be able to behave like human beings. That means there will be no sex jokes from Charlie, no wedding talk from Buttons, and no soul searching from Medda.”

Medda raised her hand. “Just no verbal soul searching? Or is all soul searching prohibited?”

“Uh…” Davey pursed his lips. “Just don’t be weird?”

“I’ve never been weird in my life.”

Buttons returned to Davey’s side, picking up his arm and looping it around herself. “I’m so excited to meet him! We’ll see if we have to beat his ass.”

“You won’t have to,” Davey promised earnestly. He didn’t doubt it; his cheeks were flushing just at the thought of his roommate. “He’s a good guy. He’s sweet, and handsome, and kind, and smart, and talented…”

“Okay, but this is from your perspective. And you don’t have the greatest taste in men,” Buttons pointed out.

Davey furrowed his brow, affronted. “I happen to think I have great taste in men.”

“Oh!” Charlie cut him off. “Do we get to meet the baby?”

This question even further peaked the excitement of Medda and Buttons, and when Davey said he could try to arrange it, he thought they’d all just explode. Typical of his friends to only care about Luna when they were meeting the love of Davey’s life.

Because Jack definitely was the love of his life--for now. Love was a strong word. Life was a strong word. But they could both be fleeting, if need be.

Davey doubted they would.

“Oh. Dave, you got a little something…” Crutchie gestured to his own neck, just below his jaw.

Davey reached up and scratched at it. His finger came away stained with purple paint.

He smiled.

-

“You know what we haven’t done?” Jack leaned over the counter as Davey was trying to wipe it down, preventing him from covering any more area until he got the attention he desired.

Davey leaned against the other side of the counter and smiled at him. “Lots of things.”

“We haven’t gone on a date. We should go on a date.”

Davey raised his eyebrows. “A date?”

“Yeah! We’re dating, aren’t we? Dating is a verb. We haven’t been verbs. We’ve laid on the couch together and watched Breaking Bad.”

Jack was so idealistic. So full of excitement and love and schemes, so unabashed. Davey loved it dearly. He crossed his arms on the cold countertop. “Okay. Let’s be verbs, then. Where should we go? Out to eat?”

“Maybe something with more imagination.”

“Sky’s the limit. And our pitiful salaries.” 

Jack gasped. “Idea.”

“Share with the class?”

Jack thought for a second, glancing to the side. Then he smiled. “No.”

“No?!”

“No. It’s a surprise. We’ll go tomorrow, I have the afternoon off. Can Spot and Race take Luna? If not I have a babysitter, but I would like to save money.”

(Spot had grown to absolutely love Luna. He watched her sometimes even when he didn’t need to.)

Davey huffed, leaning up from the counter and going back to cleaning it. “Will you at least tell me what I need to bring?”

“Just your cute self.”

Davey blushed, and Jack laughed at him. “I love when you turn all red. I always forget white people can do that.” He moved around the counter in order to drape himself all over Davey’s back, hindering his wiping. It hadn’t taken long for Davey to find that one of Jack’s favorite romantic activities was to prevent him from being productive. “Seriously though. No money should be needed. I got this.”

“I’m trusting you,” Davey said.

Jack giggled a little, high and gleeful. “As you should.”

-

Jack was visibly walking on air as he led Davey out to the car for their date. Davey had pretty much never seen anything cuter in his life. How strange it was to think that somebody was so excited to be going on a date with him.

“All my supplies are in the trunk,” Jack explained as he slid into the drivers’ seat of his beat-up car. Luna had been dropped off with Spot and Race, so all was well. Davey leaned back as Jack started his car, determined to enjoy himself.

He watched the scenery vigilantly as Jack drove, but he couldn’t guess where they were going until Jack pulled to a stop of a park Davey had never been to before.

Davey climbed out of the car, but not before giving Jack a look that very transparently said “what the hell are you doing?”. Jack was just smiling.

He went to the trunk, and Davey was expecting a picnic basket or something, so when Jack came up to him with a sketchpad and pencil in hand, Davey was only even more baffled.

“Come on,” Jack said, leading the way toward the playground. It was empty save for one or two mothers with small children.

“Jack, what on earth--”

“You’re my muse.” Jack held up his pencil, twirling it through his fingers. “I’m going to draw you, in various positions, and then maybe I’ll paint it later.”

That was ridiculously cute, and ridiculously beyond any of Davey’s expectations, and ridiculously Jack.

“Now. Just sit down on this little ledge here. Perfect.” Jack came over to him, positioning Davey how he wanted--moving his legs and arms and nudging him with delicate touches into the desired posture. He backed away slowly with his hands in the air once he was satisfied, and he smiled. “Perfect,” he repeated.

Davey was grinning like a fool. “I feel stupid.”

“Oh, silencio. There’s no such thing as stupid. This is art.” Jack sat down in the sand and began to draw instantly. “Don’t move.” His eyes darted between Davey and his paper, and he talked as he worked. Mostly compliments. “That shirt looks really nice on you.”

Davey flustered a little, looking at the blue button-up he had chosen. “Thank you.”

Jack led him to a few more locations. A couple trees, a bench. The slides, the swings. As Davey sat back and let Jack draw him, he tried to let it sink in that somebody loved him so much they wanted to immortalize him by hand. 

“Okay.” Jack flipped his sketchbook to a clean page and handed Davey his pencil. “Your turn.”

“My turn?”

“Yes. You’re going to draw me.” Jack laughed loudly at the look on Davey’s face.

“Oh, Jack, this is not going to be pretty.”

“Pretty’s not the point! Don’t look at my ones of you yet. I’m going to finish them later. Here. I’ll do the first pose for you.” Jack bounded over to the monkey bars and hauled himself up onto them, fully ignoring the strange looks he was getting from nearby mothers and children.

Davey was laughing at him, hand covering his mouth as he watched Jack make a complete spectacle of himself. “You’re ridiculous.”

“I know. All for your amusement.” He leaned back. “Go to town, hermoso.”

Davey tried his best. He really did. But he was not any kind of artist, and it showed very plainly. He pretty much wound up with a demented-looking sort-of-stick-figure atop a set of monkey bars with some very confusing dimensions.

Jack hopped down, eager to see. The moment he did, he burst into laughter.

“I tried! I really did,” Davey insisted, but then he started to laugh too, and they were stumbling in circles crying over his awful drawing until they fell together into the sand.

They would collect themselves a little, then look at it some more and fall into another fit. Davey felt lightheaded. He could absolutely not remember the last time he laughed this hard.

“You did try,” Jack panted, wiping at his eyes. “Ay-yi-yi. You made me shed tears.”

Davey took Jack’s face into his hands. “I swear I think you’re beautiful.”

Jack smiled, dimples on show. His eyes were still glowing and his cheeks were still rosy from all the cackling they’d done. “You’ll just have to write me something.”

-

After the drawing incident, they went and grabbed some food from a nearby diner, and walked around the park some more. They talked and talked until the sun went down. Davey was finding that he and Jack never ran out of things to talk about.

It was nearly dark when they finally went home. They decided to leave Luna with Spot for a while and take a bit more time for themselves.

Jack fell into Davey’s bed after kicking his shoes off. “Good date?” he asked.

“Amazing date.” Davey crawled in next to him, and they laid there, sides pressed together. They looked up at the glow stars on the ceiling. “You have the best ideas. The best mind.” He ran a hand through Jack’s hair, and his lips twitched at the way Jack practically arched into it like a cat.

“Ah, I can’t take full credit for that one. Katie came up with it.” Jack turned his head a little, pressing his forehead to Davey’s arm.

Davey was surprised to hear the name. “She had a good mind, too, then.”

“Yeah.” Jack sounded wistful.

“How are you doing with that?” Davey let his head fall on top of Jack’s. “Well--you know what I mean.”

Of course Jack knew what he meant. “I’m okay,” he said, his voice suddenly lacking in its prior brightness and humor. “I’m still having a hard time. But I think she’d want me to love again. That’s what I keep telling myself.”

Davey smiled. It was a sad smile.

“She would have loved you, you know,” Jack said, voice a little less heavy. “I bet you guys would’ve gotten along real good.”

“I wish I could have met her.”

“I have a hard time dealing with that. You know? Losing her was the worst thing that ever happened to me. But if I hadn’t lost her, I wouldn’t have met you.” Jack draped an arm across Davey’s torso, like it soothed the visualization of him disappearing.

Davey gently rubbed his hand up and down Jack’s arm. “You don’t have to bargain. Things have happened how they did.” He sighs, voice lowering to something like a whisper. “But I understand why it’s hard.”

Jack lifted his head after another long moment of silence and kissed Davey again. It startled Davey a little, but he accepted it, letting his hands start to roam over Jack’s shoulders. They didn’t stop kissing. Not until Jack reached for the buttons on Davey’s shirt.

Davey broke the kiss, eyes wide. “You want to--?”

“Yes.” Jack looked at him earnestly. He was so beautiful. His lips were more prominent now that they’d been kissed, and his hair was ruffled, and his dark eyebrows were ever so slightly furrowed. “I can’t promise I’ll know what I’m doing. But I need you. I need to get you on my brain. Because you’re here.”

Davey hesitated. They were on their sides now, facing each other, so close they were breathing the same air. They were murmuring, because it was all that was needed to hear each other. “I’ll guide you, Jack. If you know you’re ready.”

Jack stroked Davey’s cheek. “I am. I promise, Dave.”

It was a bad idea. Yeah. It probably, definitely, was a bad idea. Because only God knew if Jack was going to be in Davey’s life forever, and Davey knew that if he had sex with Jack right now, he was going to fall in love. All the way in love. Permanently in love. He was going to seal his own fate.

Davey nodded, and he kissed Jack again. Jack’s lips moved to Davey’s neck, moving across the skin languidly as Davey reached down and started to unbutton his own shirt. Jack’s smell was already surrounding him, and his warmth, and his senses were filled with Jack, Jack, Jack.

Their clothes all wound up on the floor in a pretty short amount of time. As Davey clutched at the bedsheets and moved against Jack, he thought that this wasn’t a bad fate to seal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> gettin STEAMY aren't we!!! whew. we'll see how this ends up now won't we ;). promise the next chapter will come sooner than in 2 months. PROMISE.  
> pls pls pls leave comments and tell me what you think! and rb this post if you so desire, it's on my tumblr livingchancy. thank you so so much for reading and i will see u newsies folks in the next update :3


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